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THE    HISTORIC    FORCES   WHICH 
GAVE    RISE    TO    PURITANISM. 


AN    ADDRESS 


ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE 


2  50  th  Anniversary 


OF  THE  SETTLEMENT  OF 


New  Haven 


APRIL  25th,  1888 


Delivered  in  the  Center  Church,  before  the  Congregational  Club,  April  230°. 


By   WILLIAM  L.   KINGSLEY 


NEW  HA  FEN 
1888. 


NOTE.— Some   pages  of   this  Address  were  omitted,   in  consequence 
of  its  length,  at  the  time  of  delivery. 


Stack 

Annex 


ADDRESS. 


OVER  the  principal  entrance  to  this  church  an  inscription 
was  placed,  not  many  years  ago,  by  one*  who  will  long  be 
remembered  here  with  affection,  which  records  the  fact  that 
"a  company  of  English  Christians,  led  by  John  Davenport 
and  Theophilus  Eaton,  were  the  founders  of  New  Haven," 
and  that  "  here  they  built  their  first  house  of  worship." 
Underneath  this  church,  where  we  are  now  gathered,  reposes 
their  dust ;  yet  their  blood  is  still  throbbing  in  the  veins  of  the 
men  and  women  who  are  around  us.  On  the  two  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  that  company  of  English 
Christians  on  these  shores,  we  cannot  but  direct  our  thoughts 
to  them.  The  impress  of  what  they  did  is  upon  all  about  us. 
Even  these  streets,  this  Green,  so  much  more  spacious  and 
convenient  than  anything  which  had  been  planned  on  this 
continent  before  their  time,  bear  testimony  to  the  enlightened 
views  which  they  had  of  what  a  city  should  be.  Even  we 
ourselves,  our  conceptions  of  life,  our  tastes,  our  very  preju- 
dices, are  the  result,  in  no  small  degree,  of  ideas  of  right  and 
of  duty  which  led  them  to  brave  the  sea  and  all  the  dangers  of 
an  unknown  wilderness.  To-day  that  company  of  English 
Christians, — the  forefathers  of  this  town, — walk  these  streets 
once  more.  There  is  no  one  so  thoughtless,  who  has  not  asked 
*  Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  D.D. 


himself  what  manner  of  men  they  were.  There  is  no  one  so 
well  acquainted  with  their  history  who  will  not  find  that  a  new 
consideration  of  what  it  was  that  they  undertook  to  do,  and  of 
the  results  which  they  accomplished,  will  serve  as  an  ennobling 
force  to  give  him  fresh  inspiration  for  his  own  narrower  round 
of  duty. 

But  the  story  of  what  that  company  of  English  Christians 
did  has  been  so  often  told,  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  tell  it 
over  again.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  it  might  better  serve 
the  purpose  of  this  hour,  and  enable  us  to  get  a  more  lifelike 
conception  of  the  personality  of  the  founders  of  our  town,  if  I 
were  to  recall  to  your  minds  what  were  some  of  the  historic 
forces  which  made  them  what  they  were.  The  age  which 
gave  them  birth  was  not  isolated  from  those  which  preceded  it. 
The  ages  are  all  interlocked.  That  which  precedes  always 
prepares  the  way  for  that  which  succeeds.  Their  age  was  the 
legitimate  outcome  of  the  ages  which  had  gone  before,  as  our 
age  has  felt  the  shaping  influences  and  is  the  product  of  the 
age  in  which  they  lived.  They  were  as  truly  the  children  of 
their  past  as  we  are  of  our  past.  Bear  with  me  then,  if  I  ask 
you  to  go  back  with  me  for  a  few  moments  to  a  period  as  far 
before  them  as  the  period  of  their  settlement  of  New  Haven  is 
before  us.  Such  a  consideration  of  some  of  the  historic 
forces  which  made  them  what  they  were  may  not  be  without 
its  value. 


If  we  thus  go  back  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  the 
founding  of  New  Haven,  we  come  to  the  fourteenth  century. 
I  will  remind  you  that  this  was  long  before  the  discovery  of 
America  by  Columbus.  The  nations  of  the  continent  of 
Europe  had  hardly  emerged  from  the  chaos  of  feudal  warfare. 
The  great  nobles  had  still  so  much  power  that  they  were  the 
rivals  even  of  their  sovereigns,  and  were  ever  combining 


against  them  or  against  each  other,  whenever  ambition  or  some 
fancied  grievance  tempted  them.  The  Church  too  had  lost 
much  of  the  power  of  a  living  faith.  The  ecclesiastical  digni- 
taries had  become,  to  a  great  extent,  as  mundane  and  as 
ambitious  as  the  nobles.  A  large  part  of  them  had  given 
themselves  up  to  a  life  of  self-indulgence.  The  gluttony  of 
the  monks  was  proverbial.  St.  Bernard,  centuries  before, 
complained  that  there  were  bishops  who  had  so  many  different 
kinds  of  wine  on  their  tables  that  it  was  impossible  even  so 
much  as  to  taste  the  half  of  them.  We  read  of  the  monks  in 
a  certain  monastery  who  complained  of  their  abbot  because  he 
had  reduced  their  ordinary  dinners  from  sixteen  to  thirteen 
dishes.  As  for  the  laity,  there  was  no  independent  thought 
among  them,  no  independent  action. 

But  things  had  begun  everywhere  to  take  an  upward  tend- 
ency. The  commercial  activity,  started  by  the  Crusades,  had 
served  to  break  down  many  of  the  barriers  which  had  sepa- 
rated the  people  of  different  countries.  The  cities  which  had 
their  rise  in  the  twelfth  century  had  acquired  franchises  and 
privileges,  and  the  burghers  had  learned  many  lessons  in 
freedom.  Universities  had  been  established,  and  though  the 
learned  doctors  who  had  been  trained  in  them  expended  their 
strength  in  the  unprofitable  word-splittings  of  the  scholastic 
philosophy,  yet  learning  was  preserved,  and  the  intellects  of 
an  ever  increasing  multitude  of  students  were  sharpened  into 
activity.  The  Christian  Church  also,  so  democratic  in  its 
organization,  which  through  the  Middle  Ages  had  been  the 
protector  of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  stiD,  notwithstanding 
its  degeneracy,  preached  the  doctrines  of  kindness  and  charity, 
and  was  an  ever  present  protest  against  the  excesses  of  strife 
and  violence. 

England,  at  the  period  to  which  we  have  gone  back,  was  in 
many  respects  one  of  the  least  important  of  the  States  of 


6 

Europe.  In  population  it  was  far  inferior.  The  mass  of  its 
inhabitants  were  occupied  with  the  cultivation  of  the  soil. 
The  national  wealth  consisted  in  flocks,  and  herds,  and  the 
harvest  of  the  year.  Credit  was  unknown.  To  be  sure, 
English  sailors  from  the  Cinque  Ports  had  made  themselves  at 
home  on  the  sea.  A  few  manufactures  were  carried  on, 
though  they  were  of  the  rudest  kind.  But  compared  with  the 
nations  of  Southern  Europe,  or  with  those  great  cities  which 
were  growing  up  in  the  Low  Countries  and  in  Italy,  England 
held  a  very  inconsiderable  position. 

Its  inhabitants  were  a  coarse  and  even  a  brutal  people.  The 
grandees  of  the  royal  and  imperial  courts  of  Italy  and  of  Con- 
stantinople, the  merchant  princes  of  Venice,  of  Genoa,  of  Pisa, 
of  Bruges,  and  of  Antwerp,  looked  on  them  as  little  better 
than  barbarians.  They  were  thoroughly  rude  and  unculti- 
vated. The  stock  from  which  they  had  originally  come  was  a 
coarse  one.  No  one  of  the  savage  tribes  which  had  overrun 
the  Roman  Empire  was  more  fierce  or  more  cruel  than  those 
Saxons,  and  Angles,  and  Jutes,  and  Frisians,  who  had  come 
over  from  their  primeval  forests  to  ravage  and  butcher,  and 
finally  to  settle  themselves  in  that  foggy  island,  which  was 
naturally  only  a  little  more  habitable  than  their  own  muddy 
swamps  in  Jutland.  Mr.  Taine  has  described  them  in  language 
which  it  may  be  worth  while  to  repeat :  "  Huge  white  bodies, 
cold  blooded,  with  fierce  blue  eyes,  reddish  flaxen  hair,  raven- 
ous stomachs,  filled  with  meat  and  cheese  ;  of  a  cold  tempera- 
ment, prone  to  brutal  drunkenness  !  Pirates !  They  had  found 
that  of  all  kinds  of  hunting,  the  man-hunt  was  the  most  profit- 
able and  the  most  noble  !  From  that  moment,  sea-faring,  war, 
and  pillage  became  their  ideal  of  a  freeman's  work.  So  they  left 
the  care  of  their  land  and  flocks  to  the  women,  and  in  wretched 
boats  of  hide  dashed  to  sea  in  their  two  sailed  barks,  and 
landed  anywhere  ;  killed  everything  ;  and  having  sacrificed  in 
honor  of  Odin  and  Thor  the  tithe  of  their  prisoners,  and 


leaving  behind  them  the  red  light  of  their  burnings,  went 
further  on  to  begin  again.  'Lord,' — says  a  certain  litany — 
'  deliver  us  from  the  fury  of  the  Jutes  !'  Of  all  barbarians, 
they  were  the  strongest  of  body,  the  most  formidable,  and  the 
most  cruelly  ferocious."  For  centuries  the  descendants  of 
these  vikings  had  fought  with  the  Britons,  and  fought  with 
each  other,  and  there  had  been  little  to  elevate  or  refine  them. 
In  due  time,  they  had  accepted  the  Christian  religion,  and 
they  had  made  some  considerable  advances  towards  civiliza- 
tion ;  but  a  state  of  things  still  existed  among  them  in  the 
fourteenth  century  which  to  us  at  the  present  day  seems  little 
better  than  anarchy.  It  was  the  period  of  the  "  hundred  years 
war  "  waged  in  France  by  the  English  kings  for  the  possession 
of  the  throne  of  that  country.  During  that  war,  English 
soldiers  had  become  accustomed  to  deeds  of  outrage,  and  had 
been  trained  to  the  work  of  plunder,  in  all  its  various  forms, — 
the  pillage  of  farm  houses,  the  sack  of  cities,  the  ransom  of 
captives  !  The  feeling  common  among  them  was  expressed 
by  the  soldier  who  exclaimed :  "  If  God  had  been  a  soldier 
nowadays,  he  would  have  been  a  marauder !"  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  on  the  return  of  these  men  to  England,  lawlessness 
and  brutality  reigned  without  check.  The  historian  Green 
says  of  this  period,  that  houses  were  sacked,  judges  were 
overawed  or  driven  from  the  bench,  peaceful  men  were  hewn 
down  by  assassins  or  plundered  by  armed  bands,  women  were 
carried  off  to  forced  marriages,  elections  were  controlled  by 
brute  force,  parliaments  were  degraded  into  camps  of  armed 
retainers.  Hume  says,  "No  subject  could  trust  to  the  laws 
for  protection.  Men  openly  associated  themselves,  under  the 
patronage  of  some  great  baron,  for  their  mutual  defence. 
They  wore  public  badges,  by  which  their  confederacy  was 
distinguished.  They  supported  each  other  in  all  quarrels, 
iniquities,  extortions,  murders,  robberies,  and  other  crimes. 
Their  chief  was  more  their  sovereign  than  the  king  himself. 


8 

There  was  perpetual  turbulence,  disorder,  and  faction."  Jes- 
sopp,  an  English  antiquary,  says :  "  If  a  man  had  a  claim  on 
another  for  a  debt,  or  a  piece  of  land,  or  a  right  which  was 
denied  him,  or  even  if  he  thought  he  had,  he  found  no  difficulty 
in  getting  together  a  score  or  two  of  ruffians  to  back  him  in 
taking  the  law  into  his  own  hands."  The  books  are  full  of  the 
stories  of  outrage  and  savagery,  that  were  constantly  occurring. 
The  villein  who  had  run  away  from  his  lord  and  become  an 
outlaw,  the  broken  soldier  returning  penniless  from  the  wars, 
found  shelter  and  wages  in  the  homes  of  the  greater  barons, 
and  furnished  them  with  a  force  ready  at  any  moment  for 
violence  or  strife.  It  was  the  recognized  custom  of  the  time. 
It  was  even  reduced  to  a  system,  and  was  known  by  the  name 
of  "maintenance."  England  was  divided  into  numberless 
hostile  camps.  The  state  of  things  was  little  better  than  that 
of  an  armed  truce.  Every  one  was  attached  to  some  one  of 
the  warring  factions,  and  these  might  come  to  blows  any  day 
on  the  slightest  provocation.  The  yeomen  and  even  the  lords 
of  the  manor  everywhere  put  on  the  livery  of  some  powerful 
baron  in  order  to  be  able  to  secure  aid  and  patronage  in  any 
fray  or  suit  in  which  they  might  be  engaged.  Mr.  Green  says 
that,  even  in  Parliament  itself,  "  the  White  Eose  of  the  house 
of  York,  the  Eed  Eose  of  the  house  of  Lancaster,  the  port- 
cullis of  the  Beauforts,  the  pied  bull  of  the  Nevils,  the  bear 
and  ragged  staff  of  the  Beauchamps,  were  seen  on  hundreds  of 
breasts." 

In  further  illustration  of  the  condition  of  things  in  England 
at  this  time,  Dr.  Jessopp  says  that  in  a  small  parish  in  Norfolk 
a  certain  John  de  la  Wade  got  together  a  band  of  men, 
invaded  the  manor  of  Hamon  de  Cleure,  seized  the  grain, 
threshed  it,  cut  down  the  timber,  and  carried  off  the  whole. 
He  then  describes  at  length  two  other  cases  of  a  precisely 
similar  kind  which  happened  the  same  year  in  the  same  parish. 
He  tells  us  also  that  two  gentlemen  of  position  went  with 


9 

twenty-five  of  their  retainers  to  the  Hall  at  Little  Barninghain, 
where  lived  an  old  lady,  Petronilla  de  Gros,  set  fire  to  the 
house  in  five  places,  dragged  the  old  lady  out  with  brutal 
violence,  and  so  worked  upon  her  fears  as  to  compel  her  to 
tell  them  where  were  her  jewels  and  money.  In  another 
little  parish,  which  •  he  describes,  he  says  the  catalogue  of 
crime  for  the  year  is  so  ghastly, — I  use  his  own  words, — "  as 
positively  to  stagger  one."  I  will  not  take  any  account  of  the 
minor  offenses  which,  as  he  says,  were  brought  to  trial  before 
the  courts,  or  give  the  details  of  the  worst  crimes  which  he 
describes  ;  but  he  says  that,  in  that  small  parish,  in  one  year, 
eight  men  and  four  women  were  murdered,  and  that  there 
were  besides  five  fatal  fights. 

The  degree  of  civilization  to  which  the  people  of  England 
had  then  attained  can  be  estimated  from  the  way  in  which 
they  lived.  Dr.  Jessopp  tells  us  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
people  lived  in  houses  which  were  no  better  than  what  we 
should  call  hovels.  They  were  covered  with  turf,  and  some- 
times with  thatch.  !None  of  them  had  chimneys.  They  had 
not  even  windows.  The  hole  in  the  roof  which  let  out  the 
smoke  rendered  windows  unnecessary.  Even  in  the  houses  of 
the  nobility,  windows  were  rare.  Oiled  linen  cloth  served  to 
admit  a  feeble  semblance  of  light  and  keep  out  the  rain.  In 
the  houses  of  the  laborers,  the  fire  was  in  the  middle,  and 
around  it  the  laborer  and  his  wife  and  children  huddled. 
Going  to  bed  meant  flinging  themselves  down  on  the  straw,  as 
now  in  a  gypsy's  tent.  Dr.  Jessopp  says  that  the  food  of  the 
majority  of  the  people  of  England  was  of  the  coarsest  descrip- 
tion. The  poor  man's  loaf  was  black  as  mud  and  as  tough  as 
shoe  leather.  In  the  winter  time,  turf  was  burned ;  but  the 
horse  and  sheep  and  cattle  were  half  starved  for  at  least  four 
months  in  the  year,  and  one  and  all  were  much  smaller  than 
they  are  now.  There  were  no  potatoes,  and  the  absence  of 
vegetables  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  together  with  the 


10 

titter  disregard  of  all  hygienic  laws,  made  diseases  of  all  kinds 
frightfully  common.  As  for  the  laborer's  dress,  it  was  a 
single  garment,  a  kind  of  tunic  leaving  the  arms  and  legs  bare, 
with  a  girdle  of  rope  or  leather  tied  round  the  waist,  in  which 
a  knife  was  stuck  to  use  sometimes  in  hacking  his  bread,  some- 
times for  stabbing  an  enemy  in  a  quarrel. 

Dr.  Jessopp  adds  that  if  the  houses  of  the  laborers  were 
squalid,  and  dirty,  and  dark,  the  homes  of  the  employers  of 
labor  were  not  much  better.  In  the  homes  of  the  nobles  and 
of  the  gentry,  and  in  some  of  the  more  richly  endowed  of  the 
monasteries,  there  might  be  more  provision  for  comfort ;  but, 
even  centuries  later,  fresh  straw  was  laid  down  daily  in  the 
palace  of  the  king.  Coarseness  and  want  of  refinement  char- 
acterized the  gentry  and  the  nobles.  Their  ignorance  was 
great.  Their  tastes  were  low.  Anthony  Wood,  the  historian 
of  the  University  of  Oxford,  tells  a  story  of  a  baron  of  that 
day  at  whose  castle  two  students  presented  themselves  and 
sought  an  introduction  by  sending  in  their  academical  creden- 
tials, in  which,  among  other  accomplishments,  they  were 
described  as  gifted  with  a  poetical  vein.  But  so  far  was  the 
baron  disposed  to  treat  them  with  the  slightest  respect,  that 
he  ordered  that  they  should  be  put  in  two  buckets  over  a  well 
and  be  dipped  alternately  into  the  water  until  each  should 
produce  a  couplet  on  his  awkward  situation.  The  historian 
says  that  it  was  not  till  after  a  considerable  number  of  duck- 
ings that  the  unfortunate  students  finished  the  rhymes,  while 
the  baron  and  his  retainers  stood  around  during  the  process  of 
concoction,  and  made  themselves  merry  over  these  involuntary 
ascents  and  descents. 


I  have  carried  you  back  with  me  in  English  history  just 
about  as  far  before  the  time  of  the  landing  on  these  shores  of 
the  founders  of  this  town,  as  the  period  of  their  landing  is 


11 

before  this  anniversary  occasion.  I  have  done  this  because  in 
order  to  form  any  adequate  conception  of  what  they  and  the 
other  men  of  the  seventeenth  century  were,  it  is  necessary  to 
understand  what  the  men  of  England  were  who  preceded  them 
in  the  fourteenth  century.  Just  as  to  have  any  proper  appre- 
ciation of  the  sun  in  its  early  dawn,  while  it  is  still  struggling 
with  the  mists  of  morning  and  its  rays  are  obscured  and  the 
air  is  damp  and  chill,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back,  in  thought  at 
least,  to  the  thick  darkness  that  one  short  hour  before  covered 
all.  It  would  seem  as  if  it  were  hardly  necessary  to  remind 
you  that,  according  to  the  unalterable  laws  of  nature,  the 
dawn  with  all  its  incompleteness  must  ever  precede  the  day. 
Yet  there  have  always  been,  and  always  will  be,  sentimental 
people,  who  dissatisfied  with  the  dull  routine  of  their  lives, 
will  delight  to  deceive  themselves,  and  will  plaintively  sigh 
for  the  good  old  days,  and  imagine  that,  at  some  remote  period 
in  the  past,  there  was  a  fabulous  age,  in  which  the  early  dawn 
lighted  up  and  gilded  the  world  as  gloriously  as  the  sun  in  mid 
heavens.  But  this  is  all  a  dream.  The  facts  stubbornly  refuse 
to  countenance  a  belief  in  any  such  period.  They  point  to 
the  future  as  the  only  golden  age.  It  is  because  so  many 
persons  have  not  understood  this,  that  they  have  actually  sup- 
posed when  they  have  heard  of  the  darkness  of  the  past,  of 
its  narrowness,  its  bigotry,  its  cruelty,  that  these  were  the 
special  characteristics  of  the  Puritans,  that  it  was  the  Puritans 
who  were  in  some  way  responsible  for  all  that  is  so  repulsive  ; 
when  it  was  the  Puritans  who,  although  not  entirely  free  from 
the  effects  of  the  influences  under  which  they  had  been  edu- 
cated, grappled,  with  resolute  and  intrepid  spirit,  with  the 
abuses  of  their  time,  and  sought  to  clear  them  away  and  bring 
in  something  better. 

The  description  I  have  given  of  England  in  the  fourteenth 
century  is  very  imperfect.  Any  description,  so  brief  as  such 
an  hour  as  this  allows,  must  be  entirely  inadequate.  Yet 


12 

perhaps  it  has  served  to  remind  you  what  thick  darkness  then 
covered  England.  That  century  and  the  centuries  before  it 
have  been  called  the  centuries  of  death.  They  were  so  indeed ! 
Yet  perhaps  they  might  better  be  called  centuries  of  birth. 
But  the  processes  by  which  the  development  of  life  proceeded 
were  so  painfully  slow  that  we  grow  weary  as  we  trace  them 
in  our  histories,  and  even  from  century  to  century  we  can 
hardly  assure  ourselves  that  there  has  been  any  substantial 
progress  ;  or  scarcely  that  there  is  any  life  at  all, — death  and 
life  seem  to  contend  together  so  long  for  the  mastery.  To 
watch  the  struggle  between  the  new  life  and  the  old  death  is 
like  watching  the  slow  coming  on  of  the  belated  spring. 

With  our  idea  of  the  orderly  ongoing  of  the  business  of  life 
in  a  civilized  community,  it  is  simply  impossible  to  understand 
the  contrasts  then  presented  in  England.  We  have  them 
described  however  by  men  whose  testimony  is  unimpeachable, 
by  men  too  who  described  them  from  different  points  of  view 
and  for  different  purposes.  One  of  the  witnesses  is  Wycliffe 
— a  scholar  who  had  been  at  first  drawn  away  from  his  aca- 
demic studies  by  the  necessity  of  appearing  in  the  defence  of 
the  rights  of  the  crown  against  Roman  aggressions.  As  the 
struggle  went  on,  he  was  brought  to  realize  how  little  the 
church,  as  then  constituted,  was  doing  for  the  spiritual  inter- 
ests of  the  people,  and  he  conceived  the  idea  of  translating  the 
Bible  for  their  use.  But  the  first  of  the  reformers  came  too 
soon.  Another  contemporary  witness  is  William  Longland, 
the  poet  of  the  poor.  A  third  is  the  genial  Chaucer, — the 
poet  of  the  brightest  side  of  the  life  of  the  period.  Longland 
and  Chaucer  have  been  called  Puritan  poets,  though  they  lived 
before  what  is  distinctively  called  the  Puritan  age.  They 
substantially  agree  as  to  the  disheartening  character  of  the 
outlook.  Peterkin,  the  ploughman,  pictures  the  woes  of  the 
laboring  classes,  the  vices  and  the  abuses  that  reigned  every- 
where, and  especially  the  moral  destitution  of  the  people.  He 


13 

arraigns  the  church  as  responsible  for  it.  He  boldly  attacks 
its  corruptions.  He  pictures  its  worldliness,  and  the  careless- 
ness of  its  dignitaries.  He  describes  the  hypocrisy,  the  ignor- 
ance, the  insolence,  the  immorality  of  the  ecclesiastics.  He 
professes  himself  to  be  in  despair,  and  finds  his  only  comfort 
in  the  hope  that  there  may  yet  be  a  thorough  religious  refor- 
mation. In  opposition  to  all  the  perfunctory  formalities 
prescribed  by  the  church,  he  proclaims  that  a  righteous  life 
is  far  better  than  a  host  of  indulgences.  Chaucer  draws 
attractive  pictures  of  the  well-to-do  citizens  of  different  ranks, 
the  doctor,  the  man  of  law,  the  clerk,  the  franklin,  the  squire, 
the  parson,  the  friar,  the  miller.  He  does  this  with  a  lightness 
and  brilliancy  of  touch,  with  a  geniality  and  human  sympathy 
which  has  delighted  all  succeeding  generations  ;  yet,  through 
all,  the  self-indulgence  and  indolence  and  carelessness  of  the 
ecclesiastics  are  plainly  revealed,  and  their  neglect  of  the 
spiritual  interests  confided  to  their  care.  With  these  witnesses 
before  us,  the  question  cannot  but  arise,  how  could  the  Eng- 
land of  Piers  Ploughman,  and  the  England  of  Chaucer  exist 
side  by  side  ?  That  they  did,  there  can  be  no  question.  I 
have  thought  that  the  strange  contrasts  which  then  existed, 
and  which  Longland  and  Chaucer  reveal,  are  perhaps  well 
illustrated  by  the  scenes  in  an  English  novel,  which  not  long 
ago  was  widely  read  and  admired  ;  though  it  describes  a  very 
different  period  of  English  history.  I  refer  to  a  picture  of 
English  rural  life,  most  attractive  in  many  respects,  as  it 
existed  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  I  refer 
to  Lorna  Doone,  written  by  R.  D.  Blackmore.  Those  of  you 
who  have  read  the  work  will  remember  that  the  reader  is 
introduced  into  the  charming  home  of  an  English  yeoman. 
Nothing  in  English  literature  is  more  beautiful  than  the 
description  which  is  given  of  the  order  and  regularity  with 
which  everything  proceeds  in  this  almost  ideal  farm  house. 
But  within  a  few  miles  live  a  nest  of  brutal  outlaws, — all  men, 


14 

it  is  well  to  notice,  in  whose  veins  flow  the  blood  of  the 
nobility  of  England.  These  outlaws  subsist  by  regular  sys- 
tematic robbery.  There  is  no  farm  house  that  is  not  at  any 
time  in  danger  of  a  visitation  ;  no  family  that  is  not  liable  to 
be  waked  at  night  and  to  find  ricks,  and  barns,  and  the  house 
itself,  in  a  blaze  ;  no  family  that  does  not  know  that  if  they 
have  gained  for  themselves  the  enmity  of  these  men,  they  may 
be  exposed,  as  they  attempt  to  make  their  escape, — men, 
women,  and  children, — to  the  merciless  shots  of  these  mid- 
night marauders.  This  was  the  state  of  things  in  England 
half  a  century  after  New  England  was  settled.  Now  in  the 
fourteenth  century  it  was  immeasurably  worse.  Brigandage 
in  a  hundred  forms  was  almost  an  every  day  occurrence.  No 
pack  wagon  carried  merchandise  on  any  road  of  England,  from 
town  to  town,  without  the  protection  of  an  armed  guard. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  every  precaution,  it  was  liable  to  be 
stopped  on  the  highway  by  a  stronger  force,  its  contents  seized 
and  carried  off.  Dr.  Jessopp  says  of  this  period,  after  a  detail 
of  particulars  which  are  too  revolting  for  repetition :  "  It  is 
impossible  to  realize  the  hideous  ferocity  of  the  state  of  society 
at  this  time.  The  women  were  as  bad  as  the  men,  furious 
beldames,  dangerous  as  wild  beasts,  without  pity,  without 
shame,  and  without  remorse,  who  finding  life  so  cheerless,  so 
hopeless,  so  very,  very  dark  and  miserable,  when  nothing  else 
was  to  be  gained  by  killing  anyone  else,  killed  themselves." 
And  yet  at  that  very  tune  the  courts  were  everywhere  open. 
Judges  rode  their  circuits,  and  bishops  made  their  regular 
visitations.  Such  were  the  amazing  contrasts  that  England 
presented  in  the  fourteenth  century. 

I  shall  not  undertake  to  give  anything  like  a  description  of 
events  between  the  fourteenth  and  the  seventeenth  centuries  ; 
but  I  will  remind  you  that  of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 


15 

between  1388  and  the  landing  of  that  company  of  English 
Christians  on  these  shores,  the  whole  of  the  first  half  was 
little  better  than  the  fourteenth  century.  During  a  great  part 
of  it,  the  period  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  it  was  actually  in 
many  respects  worse.  It  is  true  that  there  was  progress,  but 
it  was  hardly  apparent  at  the  time.  At  the  end  of  the  next 
hundred  years,  however,  about  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  or  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  a 
great  change  had  become  apparent.  But  you  will  notice  that 
we  have  now  come  quite  down  to  the  time  of  the  birth  of 
John  Davenport  and  Theophilus  Eaton,  and  it  is  for  this 
reason  that  we  are  interested  to  inquire  what  were  the  forces 
during  the  sixteenth  century  that  brought  about  the  change 
from  the  darkness  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 
What  were  the  influences  under  which  the  characters  of  the 
founders  of  New  Haven  were  formed  ? 

In  attempting  to  answer  this  question,  I  remind  you  that 
England  had  been  almost  the  last  country  in  Europe  to  feel 
the  effects  of  the  intellectual  regeneration  which  commenced 
in  Italy  on  the  arrival  of  the  Greek  scholars,  who  had  fled 
from  Constantinople  upon  its  capture  by  the  Turks  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  In  each  of  the  countries  of  Southern 
Europe,  the  effects  of  the  "  new  learning,"  as  it  was  called, 
which  these  Greek  scholars  brought,  were  felt  in  the  stimulus 
that  it  gave  to  thought.  Taine  says,  "  Men  then  opened  their 
eyes  for  the  first  time  and  saw."  The  first  effect  in  each 
country  was  to  destroy  all  interest  in  the  native  literature, 
which  till  then  had  given  delight.  But  soon  a  new  literature 
arose,  far  more  vigorous,  and  so  full  of  freshness  and  beauty 
that  it  is  still  the  admiration  of  the  world.  But,  among  those 
southern  nations,  the  "new  learning"  to  a  great  extent  ex- 
pended its  power  in  the  domain  of  literature.  Yet  it  is  to  be 
noticed  that,  even  in  its  influence  on  literature,  its  effects 
varied  in  different  countries  according  to  the  race  character- 


16 

istics  of  the  people.  So  in  England,  the  effects  of  the  "  new 
learning"  were  felt  in  the  line  of  the  race  characteristics  of 
that  people.  But  as  the  English  were  not  predisposed  to  any 
special  interest  in  the  beautiful,  in  any  of  its  forms,  the  revival 
in  England  was  not  at  all  of  a  literary  or  of  an  artistic  char- 
acter. The  English  were  a  practical  people,  and  so  the  revival 
among  them  was  distinguished  by  the  effects  which  it  pro- 
duced in  a  practical  way  upon  what  had  been  from  the  first 
their  strongest  race  characteristics — their  religious  spirit  and 
the  spirit  of  freedom  which  animated  them.  In  England,  the 
effect  of  the  new  learning  was  to  give  a  new  and  rapid  devel- 
opment to  each  of  these. 

The  first  of  these  race  characteristics  of  the  English  people 
of  which  I  will  speak  was  their  interest  in  religion.  This  was 
one  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  our  Teutonic  ancestors, 
when  we  first  hear  of  them  among  the  German  forests.  They 
had  a  predisposition  to  take  serious  views  of  life  and  to  ponder 
the  questions  which  relate  to  the  hereafter.  The  people  of 
Southern  Europe  were  satisfied  with  the  sensuous  beauty  of 
the  visible.  In  the  gloomy  North,  nature  was  everywhere  so 
wild  and  savage  that  men  seem  to  have  been  disposed  to  look 
beyond  it,  and,  instead  of  resting  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
visible  which  was  so  forbidding,  to  think  of  the  Being  to 
whom  Nature  owed  its  origin — a  Being  infinitely  great,  who 
could  only  be  apprehended  by  the  reverent  mind.  In  the 
Eddas  are  preserved  their  first  rude  ideas.  Coarse  people,  as 
they  were,  they  loved  to  dwell  on  such  high  themes  as  Right, 
Duty,  Responsibility,  Honor,  Heroism,  Self-Sacrifice.  Tacitus 
tells  us  that  their  preference  was  to  live  solitary,  each  one  near 
the  spring  or  the  wood  which  had  taken  his  fancy.  Even 
when  they  dwelt  in  villages,  each  family  lived  apart.  Each 
Teuton  thought  for  himself.  Each  Teuton  acted  for  himself. 


17 

All  were  distinguished  for  their  reticence,  their  personal  inde- 
pendence, their  manly  dignity,  their  marked  individuality.  To 
them  life  presented  itself  as  a  warfare,  and  in  the  Sagas  it  is 
the  man  who  is  loyal  to  the  right,  and  is  willing  to  sacrifice 
self,  that  is  held  up  as  worthy  of  the  highest  praise.  I  quote 
from  a  description  of  a  warrior  who  in  battle  had  refused  to 
save  himself,  when  his  chief  was  in  danger.  He  is  represented 
as  saying  "  I  will  not  budge  hence.  I  mean  to  die  by  my 
lord's  side,  near  this  man  I  have  loved  so  much."  Then  we 
are  told,  "  This  warrior  kept  his  word,  the  word  he  had  given 
to  his  chief.  He  had  sworn  that  they  should  either  return  to 
their  homes  together  safe  and  sound,  or  that  they  should  both 
fall  together  in  the  thick  of  the  carnage,  covered  with  wounds." 
The  Saga  closes :  "  The  dead  warrior  lay  by  his  chief's  side,  a 
faithful  servant."  After  the  old  vikings  had  come  to  England 
to  live,  the  first  glimpse  that  we  have  of  their  descendants 
shows  that  they  were  true  to  their  race  instincts.  Christian 
missionaries  visited  them,  and  addressed  their  king,  as  he  was 
entertaining  his  chiefs  at  a  feast.  When  the  missionary  had 
finished,  a  warrior  arose  and  said  :  "  You  remember,  O  King, 
that  which  sometimes  happens  in  winter  when  you  are  seated 
at  table  with  your  earls  and  thanes.  Your  fire  is  lighted,  and 
your  hall  is  warm,  and  without  is  rain  and  snow  and  storm. 
Then  comes  a  swallow  flying  across  the  hall.  He  enters  by 
one  door  and  leaves  by  another.  The  brief  moment  while  he 
is  within  is  pleasant  to  him.  He  feels  not  rain  nor  cheerless 
wintry  weather  ;  but  the  moment  is  brief.  The  bird  flies 
away  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  he  passes  from  winter  to 
winter.  Such  methinks  is  the  life  of  man  on  earth  compared 
with  the  uncertain  time  beyond.  It  appears  for  a  while,  but 
what  is  the  time  which  comes  after,  what  the  time  which  was 
before  ?  We  know  not.  If  then,  this  new  doctrine  may  teach 
us  somewhat  of  greater  certainty,  it  were  well  that  we  should 

regard  it."     The  high  priest  then  declared  in  presence  of  them 
2 


18 

all,  that  the  old  gods  were  powerless,  that  he  knew  nothing  of 
that  which  he  adored  ;  and  among  the  first,  lance  in  hand,  he 
assisted  to  demolish  the  temple  where  they  had  before  wor- 
sliiped. 

This  interest  in  the  "time  which  comes  after"  and  "the 
time  which  was  before,"  this  desire  to  attain  to  greater  cer- 
tainty abont  the  great  questions  which  relate  to  the  unseen 
and  the  hereafter  never  ceased  to  characterize  the  descendants 
of  those  old  vikings.     The  lament  of  Piers  Ploughman,  and 
the  writings  of  Wicliffe,  even  the  gay  verses  of  Chaucer,  give 
evidence  of  the  hold  which  these  same  ideas  had  on  the  Eng- 
lish mind,  even  in  those  centuries  when  the  church  was  most 
forgetful  of  its  responsibilities.     So  when  the  "  new  learning  " 
had  begun  in  Italy  to  attract  attention,  we  find  that  the  men 
who  first  went  there  to  study,  Grocyn,  Linacre,  John  Colet, 
did  not  go  there  simply  for  purposes  connected  with  litera- 
ture.    It  was  for  a  very  different  object.     They  looked  upon 
the  Greek  language  as  a  key  that  would  enable  them  to  un- 
lock the  true  meaning  of  the  New  Testament,  in  which  they 
hoped  to  find  that  which  would  serve  for  the  spiritual  enlight- 
enment of  their  countrymen.     They  kept  this  end  steadily  in 
view.     Uninfluenced  by  the  semi-infidel  scholars  with  whom 
they  came  in  contact,  they  remained  true  to  the  special  object 
for  which  they  had  left  their  homes,  and  on  their  return  to 
England,    established    themselves    in    the    universities,    and 
began  with   enthusiasm    to    expound    the    Gospel    and    the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul.     They  soon  preached  a  new  theology, 
not  founded  on  the  Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen,  but  on  the 
words  of  Scripture.     They  were  met  by  a  storm  of  opposition 
from  the  ecclesiastics.     They  replied  by  demanding  that  there 
should  be  a  reform  of  life  among  the  clergy.     Colet,  at  the 
direction  of  Archbishop  "Warham,  addressed  Convocation,  and 
said  :    "  Would  that  for  once  you  would  remember  your  name 
and  profession  and  take  thought  for  the  reformation  of  the 


19 

Church  !  Never  was  it  more  necessary  and  never  did  the  state 
of  the  church  need  more  vigorous  endeavors !  We  are  trou- 
bled with  heretics ;  but  no  heresy  is  so  fatal  to  us  and  to  the 
people  at  large  as  the  vicious  and  depraved  lives  of  the  clergy. 
That  is  the  worst  heresy  of  all.  The  reform  of  the  bishops 
must  precede  the  reform  of  the  clergy.  The  reform  of  the 
clergy  will  lead  to  a  general  revival  of  religion  among  the 
people  at  large.  The  accumulation  of  benefices,  the  luxury 
and  worldliness  of  the  priesthood,  must  be  abandoned.  The 
prelates  should  preach,  should  forsake  the  court,  and  labor  in 
their  own  dioceses.  Care  should  be  taken  for  the  ordination 
and  promotion  of  worthy  ministers.  Residence  should  be  en- 
forced. The  low  standard  of  clerical  morality  should  be 
raised." 

As  the  "  new  learning "  spread,  the  attack  on  the  ecclesias- 
tics was  taken  up  by  others,  prominent  among  whom  was 
Erasmus,  who  wrote  the  "  Praise  of  Folly,"  in  which  he  ex- 
posed with  such  wit  and  eloquence  the  ignorance  and  the 
bigotry  of  the  ecclesiastics,  that  to  this  day  it  holds  its  place 
as  a  classic.  Colet,  at  his  own  expense,  established  a  grammar 
school  in  London.  His  example  was  everywhere  followed. 
Henry  VIII. ,  Edward  VI.,  Elizabeth,  went  on  with  the  work, 
and  grammar  schools  were  opened  all  over  England.  Every- 
where there  was  seen  an  intellectual  quickening.  Parallel  with 
this  there  was  going  on  also  an  increase  of  wealth  in  the  coun- 
try. English  merchants  began  to  trade  with  all  the  cities  of 
Europe.  English  ships  were  sent  into  the  Baltic  and  crossed 
the  Ocean.  Manufactures  began  to  receive  attention.  A 
social  revolution  was  beginning  to  make  itself  felt,  which  was 
not  confined  to  London.  In  all  the  towns  of  England  wealth 
increased  and  men  set  higher  value  on  education  and  intel- 
ligence. 

Just  at  this  moment,  the  friends  of  the  "  new  learning " 
were  able  to  give  to  the  English  people  the  Bible,  which  under 


20 

the  Roman  system  had  been  unknown  among  then,  except  to 
a  few  of  the  priesthood.  In  Germany,  Luther  had  been  a 
monk  for  years,  when  by  an  accident,  as  he  was  dusting  the 
library  of  his  monastery,  he  happened  upon  a  copy  of  it.  So 
in  England,  if  the  Bible  had  been  known  to  the  ecclesiastics, 
they  had  made  no  practical  use  of  it.  The  Bible  therefore 
came  like  a  new  revelation  to  a  people  who  were  thirsting  for 
instruction.  It  was  received  as  a  fresh  and  inspired  disclosure 
of  the  mind  and  will  of  God.  The  reverent  submission  which 
men  had  in  former  times  been  disposed  to  yield  to  the  church 
was  now  at  once  transferred  to  that  book.  In  place  of  the 
church,  the  Bible  was  accepted  as  the  sole  and  sufficient 
authority.  It  served  to  assure  the  most  humble  believer  that 
he  might  approach  the  Creator  in  direct  and  personal  commun- 
ion without  the  intercession  of  any  so-called  saint,  and  without 
the  help  of  any  priest. 

But  what  gave  the  Bible  its  special  power  was  its  adaptation 
to  the  strongest  of  the  race  characteristics  of  the  English 
people,  the  English  predisposition  to  religion — the  English  con- 
ception of  each  man's  own  individuality  and  each  man's  own 
personal  responsibility. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Bible  has  shown  itself  to  be  adapted 
to  the  race  characteristics  of  every  people.  This  is  undoubt- 
edly true,  and  this  fact  has  even  sometimes  been  urged  as  one 
of  the  proofs  of  its  divine  origin.  It  certainly  has  shown 
itself  to  be  a  book  for  the  world,  for  all  people.  The  Hugue- 
not in  France ;  the  Camisards  among  the  mountains  of  the 
Cevennes ;  the  Waldenses  in  Italy ;  the  Germans  in  the  time 
of  Luther ;  the  people  of  Hindoostan  and  of  the  Islands  of  the 
Sea,  the  old  and  the  young,  the  prosperous  and  the  unfortu- 
nate, the  joyful  and  the  sad,  in  all  generations,  in  all  periods 
of  life,  and  under  all  circumstances,  have  found  that  it  meets 
their  myriad  experiences  and  necessities,  and  in  each  new  joy 
or  sorrow,  the  devout  believer  finds  in  it  solace,  encourage- 


21 

ment,  or  warning.  Before  our  Civil  War,  how  often  were  we 
told  that  there  was  something  in  the  Old  Testament  which 
took  hold,  in  a  wonderful  manner,  of  the  imaginations  of  the 
slaves  of  the  South.  The  story  of  the  exodus,  the  journey  in 
the  wilderness,  the  denunciations  of  the  prophets  against 
the  oppressor,  the  encouraging  words  of  the  Psalmist,  the 
glorious  pictures  of  the  New  Jerusalem  in  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation, seemed  just  adapted  to  meet  all  the  peculiar  sorrows 
and  all  the  hopes  of  that  imaginative  race.  This  is  all  true. 
Yet  it  does  seem  as  if  no  people  have  ever  found  their  race 
characteristics  more  completely  met  by  the  Bible  than  the 
English  in  the  sixteenth  century.  In  exact  harmony  with 
their  ideas  of  individualism,  which  are  as  old  as  the  race,  it 
seemed  to  address  itself  to  each  one  personally.  It  told  him 
of  his  individual  obligations  to  God.  It  presented  God  as  a 
governor,  as  the  giver  of  a  perfect  law,  which  every  man  knew 
he  had  broken.  It  presented  a  remedy  offered  by  God,  by 
which  the  majesty  of  law  could  be  upheld  and  yet  man  might 
be  saved.  It  met  his  views  of  duty,  of  right,  of  self-sacrifice. 
It  is  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
the  Bible  was  received  by  the  English  people.  Our  literature 
is  so  varied.  Books  of  every  description  are  so  numerous, 
that  only  to  hear  of  a  new  book  often  almost  wearies  us.  Yet 
even  in  these  later  times,  a  book  sometimes  absorbs  the  atten- 
tion of  a  whole  people  and  moulds  public  opinion  in  a  way 
that  we  can  hardly  understand.  Mr.  John  Morley — in  speak- 
ing of  the  appearance  of  a  book  written  by  a  popular  author 
just  before  the  French  Revolution  of  1798,  which  has  been 
sometimes  numbered  among  the  causes  which  helped  to  bring 
on  that  crisis  among  the  French  people — says :  "  The  book- 
sellers were  unable  to  meet  the  demand;  the  book  was  let 
out  at  the  rate  of  twelve  sous  a  volume,  and  the  volume  could 
not  be  detained  above  an  hour.  All  classes  shared  the  ex- 
citement, courtiers,  soldiers,  lawyers,  and  bourgeois.  Stories 


22 

were  told  of  fine  ladies  dressed  for  the  ball,  who  took  up  the 
book  for  half  an  hour,  until  the  time  should  come  for  starting, 
who  read  until  midnight,  and  when  informed  that  the  car- 
riage waited,  answered  not  a  word,  and  when  reminded  by 
and  by  that  it  was  two  o'clock,  still  read  on."  Now  it  is  to 
be  noticed  that  this  book  of  which  Mr.  Morley  speaks,  was 
only  one  book,  and  it  appeared  in  France  at  a  time  when  there 
was  already  an  abundant  national  literature.  But  the  Bible 
is  more  than  a  single  book.  Within  its  covers  is  the  whole 
national  literature  of  the  Hebrew  people.  "Legend  and 
annal,  war  song  and  psalm,  state  roll  and  biography,  the 
mighty  voices  of  prophets,  the  parables  of  evangelists,  stories 
of  mission  journeys,  of  perils  by  the  sea  and  among  the 
heathen,  philosophic  argument,  apocalyptic  vision ;  and  all 
these  were  flung  broadcast  over  minds  unoccupied  for  the 
most  part  by  any  rival  learning."  He  who  thinks  of  the  Bible 
as  a  single  book,  loses  much  of  the  impression  which  it  is 
calculated  to  make.  It  is  in  reality  a  collection  of  more  than 
sixty  books,  and  when  those  sixty  books  were  first  given  to 
the  English  people,  and  Cranmer's  Bible  was  ordered  to  be 
read  publicly  in  the  churches,  crowds  rushed  to  hear  it.  Still 
more,  when  in  1576  the  little  Geneva  Bible — then  printed  for 
the  first  time  in  Roman  type,  and  in  a  form  which  could  be 
carried  by  each  man  to  his  own  home — was  read  by  those 
who  had  little  else  to  read,  the  effect  was  felt  throughout  the 
whole  nation,  and  the  whole  conception  of  religion  was 
changed. 

Of  the  reality  and  extent  of  this  change  we  have  proof  in 
the  burst  of  welcome,  with  which  in  1590,  the  great  poem  of 
Edmund  Spenser  was  hailed — "The  Faery  Queen."  In  his 
earlier  verses,  Spenser  had  dared  to  hold  up  Archbishop 
Grindal,  who  was  in  disgrace  for  his  Puritan  sympathies,  as 
the  model  of  what  a  Christian  bishop  should  be.  In  this  new 
poem,  he  sought  to  describe  the  eiforts  of  the  man  who  is 


23 

seeking  to  obtain  the  divine  favor,  and  says  that  the  character 
which  is  pleasing  to  God  must  bear  the  "  lineaments  of  gospel 
books."  The  poem  is  a  story  of  knight  errantry,  in  the  form 
of  an  allegory.  In  conformity  with  the  popular  taste,  Spenser 
assigns  a  knightly  champion  to  each  virtue,  and  each  of  these 
knights  is  represented  as  entering  upon  the  struggle  with 
some  particular  form  of  sin.  Mr.  Green  says  that  the  poem 
both  in  its  conception  and  in  the  way  that  the  conception  is 
realized,  "struck  the  note  of  the  coming  Puritanism."  It 
was  "  Puritan  to  the  core."  It  at  once  became  "  the  delight 
of  every  accomplished  gentleman,  the  model  of  every  poet, 
the  solace  of  every  soldier."  Milton,  a  generation  or  two 
later,  addressing  the  Parliament  of  England,  said  that  Spenser 
was  "  a  better  teacher  than  Scotus  or  Aquinas."  John  Wesley, 
giving  directions  for  the  clerical  studies  of  his  Methodist  dis- 
ciples, recommended  them  to  combine  with  the  study  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  and  the  Greek  Testament,  the  reading  of  the 
u  Faery  Queen."  Mr.  Keble,  the  poet  of  the  "  Christian 
Year,"  describes  the  "  Faery  Queen  "as  "a  continual,  deliber- 
ate endeavor  to  enlist  the  restless  intellect  and  chivalrous  feel- 
ing of  an  inquiring  and  romantic  age  on  the  side  of  goodness 
and  faith,  of  purity  and  justice."  The  wonderful  popularity 
of  such  a  poem  is  proof  of  the  strength  of  the  religious  feel- 
ing which  pervaded  all  classes  of  the  English  people  at  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century. 


I  pass  now  to  another  of  the  race  characteristics  of  the 
English  people,  which  was  perhaps  as  strong  as  their  pre- 
disposition to  religion — their  love  of  freedom.  Tacitus  bears 
testimony  to  the  fact,  that  when  the  Romans  first  came  in 
contact  with  our  Teutonic  ancestors,  liberty  was  really  a  pas- 
sion with  them,  and  certainly,  down  to  the  accession  of  the 
Tudor  princes,  nothing  had  ever  occurred  to  break  the  free 


24 

spirit  which  their  ancestors  brought  from  the  forests  of  Ger- 
many. Notwithstanding  what  is  called  the  "Norman  Con- 
quest," the  inhabitants  of  England  had  never  been  depressed 
by  the  feeling  that  they  were  a  conquered  people.  The  "  Nor- 
man Conquest "  had  proved  a  great  blessing.  It  had  served 
to  unite  all  the  various  branches  of  the  great  Teutonic  family, 
who  had  successively  made  homes  for  themselves  on  English 
soil  with  the  aboriginal  Britons.  It  had  built  up  an  English 
people.  All  the  old  distinctions  of  Saxon,  and  Mercian,  and 
Northumbrian  had  been  forever  swept  away  by  the  coming 
of  the  Norman,  and  by  the  strong  rule  which  he  extended 
over  all.  And  now,  at  last,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  even 
the  distinction  of  Norman  and  Saxon  had  passed  away. 
There  is  not  a  word  in  Magna  Charta  which  refers  to  any 
difference  between  the  two  races.  Both  are  spoken  of  as 
English.  The  people  of  England  are  recognized  as  one 
people. 

The  present  generation  of  English  speaking  people  has 
derived  its  ideas  on  this  subject  to  a  great  extent  from  the 
romances  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  but  Mr.  Freeman  tells  us  that 
there  is  not  a  line  in  the  charming  novel  of  Ivanhoe  which 
does  not  convey  an  erroneous  impression  with  respect  to  the 
relations  of  the  Saxons  to  the  Normans.  Notwithstanding 
the  Conquest,  the  institutions  of  the  land  remained  English. 

The  local,  judicial,  and  administrative  forms  of  government 
in  the  fourteenth  century  were  practically  the  same  as  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  After  three  centuries,  the  conquerors  were 
themselves  conquered.  Though  they  had  introduced  a  third 
part  of  the  words  into  the  language,  the  language  continued 
to  be  English.  Their  descendants  spoke  English.  English 
blood  had  gained  the  predominance  everywhere  over  the 
Norman  blood.  The  nation  itself  remained  English.  By  the 
fourteenth  century,  the  soil  of  England  was  almost  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  men  who  could  trace  their  descent  to  the  very 


25 

Anglo-Saxon  proprietors  who  had  been  in  possession  before 
the  coming  of  the  ISTormans.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that,  at 
the  time  of  the  Conquest,  William  claimed  to  have  a  legal 
right  to  the  throne.  Mr.  Freeman  tells  us  that  it  is  utterly 
unjust  to  speak  of  this  claim  of  legal  right  and  his  show  of  a 
legal  government  as  mere  pretence  to  cover  the  violence  of  a 
successful  brigand.  It  is  true  that  his  position  was  different 
from  the  position  of  a  king  of  foreign  birth  who  succeeds  to 
a  crown  by  peaceable  election  or  peaceable  hereditary  succes- 
sion. But  Mr.  Freeman  says  it  was  also  very  different  from 
the  position  of  a  mere  invader  reigning  by  sheer  military  force. 
If  England  had  been  oppressed,  it  was  to  a  great  extent  the 
undesigned  oppression  which  had  only  arisen  from  the  fact 
that  their  laws  had  been  administered  by  foreigners.  Mr. 
Freeman  insists  that  the  notion  that  every  Englishman  at  the 
Conquest  was  turned  out  of  hearth  and  home  is  a  mere  dream. 
The  men  who  actually  fought  against  William  at  Senlac  were 
undoubtedly  dispossessed  to  a  great  extent ;  but  the  actual 
occupiers  of  the  soil  remained  in  general  undisturbed.  In 
some  cases  Englishmen  of  high  rank  contrived  even  to  win 
William's  personal  favor  and  kept  their  lands  and  even  their 
offices.  Thousands  of  proprietors  redeemed  their  land  by 
a  payment  of  money  to  the  new  king  and  went  back  to 
their  homes  rejoicing.  As  Mr.  Freeman  expresses  it,  "  They 
had  been  in  the  lion's  mouth  and  had  come  forth  unhurt." 
Those  who  received  their  estates  back  received  them  of  course 
according  to  the  prevalent  feudal  ideas,  as  a  fresh  gift  from 
the  over-lord  ;  and  different  proprietors  doubtless  received  them 
back  on  different  terms  according  to  the  merits  or  demerits  of 
each  particular  grantee.  Some  received  them "  as  a  free  gift. 
Some  bought  them  back.  Some  acquired  the  whole  of  their 
former  lands  ;  others  a  part.  Some  even  received  a  fresh  gift 
beyond  what  they  originally  possessed.  In  some  cases,  a 
widow  or  an  heiress  saved  a  great  estate  by  consenting  to  give 


26 

herself  and  her  lands  in  marriage  to  one  of  the  friends  of  the 
conqueror.  So  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  when 
there  had  corne  about  the  thorough  amalgamation  of  the 
Normans  with  the  great  body  of  the  English  people,  there 
were  few  landed  proprietors,  even  among  those  who  bore 
Norman  names,  who  could  not  trace  back  their  pedigree,  at 
least  on  one  side,  to  the  original  Anglo-Saxon  proprietors  of 
the  soil. 

Now  these  men  possessed  the  independent  spirit  of  free- 
men, and  they  displayed  the  virtues  which  usually  accompany 
freedom.  They  were  brave,  outspoken,  truthful.  They  were 
capable  of  strong  and  lasting  friendships.  They  were  ever 
ready  to  make  sacrifices  for  any  object  that  seemed  to  demand 
it.  They  had  an  ever  present  feeling  of  obligation  to  what 
they  considered  their  duty,  and  a  disposition  to  be  loyal  to 
their  chief.  And  this  spirit  was  not  confined  to  them.  It 
was  shared  to  a  great  extent  by  the  people  at  large.  The 
English  people  were  a  free  people.  Neither  in  theory  nor  in 
practice  did  their  kings  possess  absolute  power.  The  preroga- 
tives of  the  king  were  great,  but  he  could  not  legislate  ;  he 
could  not  impose  the  lightest  tax  without  the  consent  of  Par- 
liament. He  was  bound  to  administer  the  government  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  immemorial  custom.  The 
line  which  bounded  the  royal  prerogative  was  not  drawn  with 
any  great  distinctness,  but  even  William  the  Conqueror,  as  has 
just  been  said,  took  pains  to  have  it  understood  that  he  would 
conform  to  English  law.  King  John,  that  "knight  without 
truth,"  as  he  has  been  called,  that  "  king  without  justice,  that 
Christian  without  faith,"  attempted  to  disregard  the  laws,  and 
all  classes  rose  up  against  him,  and  he  thought  himself  for- 
tunate in  appeasing  their  anger  by  signing  at  Runnymede  the 
Great  Charter.  I  need  hardly  remind  you  that  this  was  not 
a  new  or  a  different  code  of  laws,  but  merely  a  formal  recog- 
nition of  the  great  and  fundamental  principles  on  which  the 


27 

government  had  rested  from  time  immemorial.  It  was  a 
written  ratification  of  the  traditions  and  customs  of  the  land, 
and  of  all  the  liberties  which  had  been  conferred  by  his  prede- 
cessors. After  that,  the  most  self-willed  of  English  kings  were 
very  careful  to  pay  the  utmost  respect  to  the  laws,  though  they 
often  sought  to  accomplish  their  designs  by  some  kind  of  eva- 
sion. Mr.  Macaulay  says,  that  so  long  as  the  general  spirit  of 
the  administration  was  mild  and  popular,  the  people  allowed 
much  latitude  to  the  sovereign  ;  but  to  this  indulgence  there 
was  a  limit.  It  would  not  do  for  a  king  to  presume  too  far  on 
the  forbearance  of  the  people.  If  for  ends  generally  allowed 
to  be  good  he  overstepped  the  constitutional  line,  they  forgave 
him  ;  but  they  claimed  the  privilege  of  overstepping  this  line 
themselves.  If  he  did  it  contrary  to  their  ideas  of  what  was 
for  the  general  good,  they  appealed  to  the  laws,  and  that 
appeal  failing,  they  appealed  to  the  god  of  battles.  They 
kept  this  check  of  physical  force  always  ready,  and  brought 
the  proudest  and  fiercest  king  to  terms.  Resistance  was  the 
ordinary  method  in  political  disturbances. 

This  bold  and  free  spirit  that  was  so  generally  diffused 
among  all  classes  of  the  English  people  was  owing,  in  great 
measure,  to  the  fact  that  there  had  never  been  any  exclusive 
spirit  of  caste  which  had  separated  the  nobles  from  the  rest 
of  the  nation.  In  the  States  on  the  Continent,  the  descend- 
ants of  a  person  of  noble  rank  were  themselves  noble,  and 
an  almost  insuperable  barrier  separated  them  forever  from  the 
people,  and  the  people  from  them.  In  those  States  there 
were  only  two  classes,  nobles  and  peasants.  But  in  England^ 
the  nobility  were  constantly  receiving  fresh  members  from 
the  people  and  constantly  sending  down  members  to  mingle 
with  the  people.  Knighthood  might  be  reached  by  any  one 
who  could  amass  an  estate  and  showed  valor  on  the  field  of 
battle.  The  daughter  of  even  a  royal  duke  might  marry  a 
commoner.  Any  gentleman  might  become  a  peer.  The 


28 

younger  son  of  a  peer  was  but  a  gentleman.  The  grandson  of 
a  peer  yielded  precedence  to  a  newly  made  kniglit.  Good 
blood  was  held  in  high  respect,  but  between  good  blood  and 
the  peerage,  nothing  barred  the  way  but  merit.  Mr.  Macaulay 
tells  us  that  even  in  that  age  there  were  pedigrees  and  scutch- 
eons out  of  the  house  of  lords  as  old  as  the  oldest  within. 
There  were  new  men  who  bore  the  highest  titles.  There  were 
untitled  men  who  were  descended  from  men  who  bore  the 
highest  titles.  There  were  Mowbrays,  Yeres,  Bohuns,  and 
even  kinsmen  of  Plantageuets,  who  had  not  one  civil  privi- 
lege beyond  those  of  any  shop-keeper  or  any  farmer  in  the 
land. 

This  fact  that  there  had  never  been  any  impassable  line 
between  patricians  and  plebeians  is  so  important  in  its  bearing 
on  the  English  character,  that  perhaps  it  will  not  be  out  of 
place  to  give  some  illustrations  drawn  from  the  condition  of 
things  in  different  classes  of  English  society.  It  will  not  be 
necessary  to  enter  into  any  detailed  account  of  the  more  min- 
ute subdivisions  of  these  classes  at  the  period  of  the  Plan- 
tagenet  princes.  It  will  be  enough  for  my  purpose  to  take 
only  the  broadest  division, — that  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Hallam. 
He  reminds  his  readers  that  there  survives  at  the  present  day 
among  all  English  speaking  children  a  string  of  words  which 
are  generally  supposed  to  be  meaningless,  but  which  have 
really  come  down  from  a  very  remote  period,  as  a  "  distribu- 
tive enumeration  "  of  what  were  then  the  different  classes  of 
English  society.  The  words  are  "gentleman,  apothecary, 
ploughman,  thief."  Under  the  title  "gentleman"  were  in- 
cluded the  greater  and  lesser  nobility,  and  the  lords  of  the 
manor,  who  may  be  considered  as  petty  kings  distributed  all 
over  England,  holding  subjects  under  them  of  different  ranks. 
Under  the  title  of  "  ploughman "  were  included  two  classes. 
There  was  the  yeoman,  who  lived  on  his  own  acres  and  culti- 
vated his  own  land,  which  he  either  owned  absolutely,  or  for 


29 

which  he  paid  yearly  to  the  lord  of  the  manor  a  small 
nominal  sum  of  money,  not  as  rent,  but  simply  as  an  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  lordship.  There  was  also  a  class  lower  in 
the  social  scale,  who  paid  rent  and  were  obliged  to  perform 
certain  menial  duties.  These  last  were  the  villeins,  who  were 
bound  to  the  soil,  and  were  unable  to  leave  it  or  change  their 
condition  without  the  license  of  the  lord  of  the  manor. 
"  Apothecary  "  was  a  term  which  was  applied  to  the  burgesses 
of  the  towns.  The  "  thief  "  was  a  villein  who  owed  allegiance 
to  the  lord  of  the  manor,  but  had  either  become  a  vagabond  or 
had  fled  to  the  "greenwood"  and  was  living  the  life  of  an 
outlaw. 

Now  for  illustration  of  this  fact,  that  among-  all  these  differ- 
ent classes  of  society  there  was  no  impassable  barrier  between 
patrician  and  plebeian,  I  take  down  the  biography  of  the 
first  person  whose  name  occurs  to  me  at  random,  among  those 
remarkable  men  who  made  the  glory  of  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  I  read  as  follows :  u  In  a  poor  farm-house  among 
the  pleasant  valleys  of  South  Devon,  among  the  white  apple 
orchards  and  the  rich  water  meadows,  and  the  red  fallows  and 
the  red  kine,  in  the  year  of  grace  1552,  a  boy  was  born  as 
beautiful  as  day,  and  christened  Walter  Raleigh.  His  father 
was  a  gentleman  of  ancient  blood ;  none  older  in  the  land ; 
but  impoverished,  he  had  settled  down  upon  the  wreck  of  his 
estate  in  that  poor  farm-house.  His  mother  was  a  Champer- 
noun,  proudest  of  Norman  squires,  and  could  probably  boast 
of  having  in  her  veins  the  blood  of  Courtneys,  Emperors  of 
Constantinople." 

I  turn  next  to  the  account  which  Bishop  Latimer  himself 
gave  of  his  own  childhood.  He  says,  "  My  father  was  a  yeoman 
and  had  no  lands  of  his  own.  He  hired  a  farm  of  three  or 
four  pounds  by  the  year,  and  hereupon  he  tilled  so  much  as 
kept  half  a  dozen  men.  He  had  walk  for  one  hundred  sheep, 
and  my  mother  milked  thirty  kine.  He  was  able,  and  did 


30 

find  the  king  a  harness  with  himself  and  his  horse.  I  can 
remember  that  I  buckled  his  harness  when  he  went  to  Black- 
heath  Field.  He  kept  me  in  school.  He  married  my  sisters 
with  five  pounds  apiece,  so  that  he  brought  them  up  in  godli- 
ness and  fear  of  God.  He  kept  hospitality  for  his  poor  neigh- 
bor, and  some  alms  he  gave  to  the  poor." 

Perhaps  I  have  made  the  mistake  of  drawing  these  illustra- 
tions from  the  period  of  the  Tudor  princes.  The  condition 
of  English  society  at  that  time,  in  other  respects,  was  very 
different,  as  I  will  soon  attempt  to  show.  But  my  object  has 
been  only  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  every  age  of 
English  history,  there  has  been  this  thorough  amalgamation 
going  on  between  patrician  and  plebeian,  in  both  the  ascend- 
ing and  descending  scale  so  that  in  the  poor  farm-houses 
might  be  found  the  descendants  of  the  highest  nobles ;  and 
side  by  side  those  who  were  themselves  of  plebeian  descent  who 
were  rising  to  the  highest  positions  in  England.  I  will  there- 
fore take  one  more  illustration  from  the  lowest  class  of  society, 
that  of  the  villeins  in  the  time  of  the  Plantagenets.  Dr. 
Jessopp  tells  us  of  a  certain  Ralph  Red,  who  in  the  thirteenth 
century  was  a  villein  on  the  lands  of  the  lord  of  the  manor  in 
one  of  the  villages  of  Norfolk.  He  had  a  son  Ralph,  who 
having  been  admitted  to  the  priesthood,  became  in  conse- 
quence enfranchised.  After  a  time  this  son,  having  acquired 
the  means,  purchased  the  freedom  of  his  father  and  his 
father's  family.  A  hunderd  years  afterwards,  a  descendant 
of  this  same  Ralph  Red  became  himself  lord  of  the  very 
manor  on  which  his  ancestor  Ralph  Red  had  been  a  villein. 
And  the  daughter  of  this  lord  of  the  manor  married  a  learned 
judge  of  the  time,  Sir  William  Yelverton,  a  knight  of  the 
Bath.  From  them  are  descended  Lord  Avonmore  and  the 
Yelvertons,  who  are  now  Earls  of  Sussex. 

Now  this  absence,  from  the  first  period  of  English  history, 
of  any  insuperable  barrier  between  patricians  and  plebeians, 


31 

and  the  possibility  of  the  intermingling  of  whatever  there  was 
of  good  blood  in  the  land  with  that  of  every  other  class,  had 
wrought  important  results  on  the  character  of  the  whole 
English  people.  It  is  an  illustration  on  a  large  scale  of  the 
effect  of  natural  laws,  now  recognized  by  the  science  of 
heredity.  Blood  tells  among  men  as  truly  as  among  animals. 
The  whole  body  of  English  people  had  felt  the  effects  down 
to  the  very  villeins.  Many  of  those  qualities  which  were 
elsewhere  deemed  to  be  the  characteristics  of  patricians  alone, 
were  in  England  to  be  found  among  plebeians — individuality, 
personal  dignity,  independence,  a  sense  of  honor,  an  interest 
in  the  State  of  which  every  one  felt  himself  a  part,  aspiration, 
self-confidence — all  the  qualities  which  are  to-day  recognized 
as  the  national  characteristics  of  Englishmen. 

In  the  States  of  Europe,  the  nobles  were  a  caste.  They  were 
kept  by  themselves.  All  outside  of  this  caste  were  peasants. 
There  was  nothing  to  elevate  them  or  give  them  hope.  The 
histories  of  the  time  describe  them  as  degraded  almost  to  the 
level  of  the  swine  and  oxen  which  they  tended.  No  matter 
how  enterprising  or  thrifty  they  were,  they  could  not  rise. 
Their  condition  in  the  Middle  Ages  may  be  judged  from  the 
condition  of  the  serfs  in  Russia  to-day,  whom  an  English  poet 
has  lately  thus  described : — 

The  serf  is  in  his  hut ;  the  unsacred  sire 

Who  can  beget  no  honor  !    Lo,  his  mate 

Dim  through  the  reeking  garlick,  she  whose  womb 

Doth  shape  his  ignorant  shame,  and  whose  young  slave 

In  some  far  field  thickens  a  knouted  hide 

For  baser  generations.     Their  dull  eyes 

Are  choked  with  feudal  warfare;  their  rank  limbs 

Steam  in  the  stye  of  plenty.     Their  rude  tongues 

That  fill  the  belly  from  the  common  trough, 

Discharge  in  gobbets  of  as  gross  a  speech, 

That  other  maw,  the  heart.     Nor  doth  the  boor 

Refuse  his  owner's  chattel,  though  she  breed 

The  rich  man's  increase;  nor  doth  she  disdain 


32 

The  joyless  usage  of  such  limbs  as  toil, 
Yoked  with  the  nobler  ox,  and  take  as  mute 
A  beast's  infliction.     At  her  stolid  side 
The  girl  that  shall  be  such  a  thing  as  she 
Suckles  the  babe  she  would  not,  with  the  milk 
A  bondmaid  owes  her  master. 

Now  there  was  no  such  class  of  people  in  England  whose 
lot  was  so  hopeless.  Even  the  villeins  caught  something  of 
the  prevailing  feeling  of  independence.  The  bold  outlaws  of 
the  "greenwood,"  so  famous  in  English  story,  were  largely 
recruited  from  this  class,  and  the  knowledge  that  their  children 
might  rise  to  a  higher  condition  was  always  a  source  of  hope 
and  courage.  Besides,  they  shared  in  that  general  spirit  of 
independence  which  had  been  so  generally  diffused  among  the 
whole  people.  English  historians  of  the  Middle  Ages  have 
recognized  fully  the  importance  of  the  existence  in  England 
of  what  they  call  the  great  middle  class,  so  unlike  and  so 
superior  to  any  body  of  men  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  Europe 
in  that  age.  But  the  existence  of  this  middle  class  is  some- 
thing to  be  itself  explained.  Why  was  there  this  middle  class  ? 
Was  it  not  the  result  of  the  intermingling  of  the  best  blood 
of  England  with  that  of  all  classes  ?  So  it  was  that  whenever 
in  those  ages  English  soldiers  contended  with  the  soldiers  of 
the  continent,  the  effects  of  these  characteristics  were  so  often 
to  be  seen.  It  was  this  that  gave  the  victory  to  the  English 
at  Crecy,  at  Poictiers,  at  Agincourt.  The  spirit  of  the  English 
yeoman  was  something  different  from  that  of  the  European 
serf.  There  was  a  feeling  of  honor,  of  independence,  and 
above  all,  as  a  race  characteristic,  the  feeling  of  individual 
responsibility,  of  individual  obligation,  to  stand  firm.  There 
was  no  panic,  for  each  man  depended  on  himself  and  did  not 
wait  for  support  from  some  one  else.  It  was  just  this  same 
quality  that  kept  the  English  squares  firm  at  Waterloo.  Mr. 
Kinglake,  describing  the  battle  of  the  Alma,  in  the  Crimean 


33 

War,  says  that  the  Russian  officers  had  been  till  then  accus- 
tomed to  think  that  the  formation  of  troops  for  battle  must  be 
in  crowded  masses.  Such  was  the  formation  on  which  the 
French  and  the  Turks  depended.  It  was  therefore  with 
amazement  that  the  Russians  saw  the  "  men  in  red "  coming 
on  "in  a  slender  line,  only  two  deep,  yet  extending  far 
from  east  to  west."  They  could  not  believe  that  "with 
so  fine  a  thread" — as  he  expresses  it — the  English  general 
was  really  intending  to  confront  their  massive  columns.  None 
but  men  who  have  nerve  and  pluck  can  stand  without  flinch- 
ing in  such  a  line,  and  such  nerve  and  pluck  are  the  result  of 
race  characteristics. 

These  race  characteristics  are  so  important  for  the  purpose 
which  I  have  in  view,  that  I  cannot  forbear  another  illustra- 
tion of  it,  as  manifested  by  one  of  the  latest  descendants  of 
the  principal  leader  of  that  very  company  of  English  Chris- 
tians who  founded  this  town.  I  remind  you  of  a  young  officer 
of  artillery,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  those  brilliant  young 
men  from  this  town,  who  laid  down  their  lives  on  the  field  of 
battle  in  the  Civil  War,  and  one  still  remembered  with  loving 
affection  by  many  here  present,  who  confidently  expected  for 
him,  after  having  been  trained  under  these  elms  in  every 
academic  and  every  manly  accomplishment,  a  long  career  of 
usefulness.  In  one  of  the  fiercest  of  the  battles  of  the 
Wilderness,  he  received  an  order  to  take  and  hold  a  danger- 
ous position  with  his  battery.  He  asked  "  Am  I  to  have  any 
support?"  He  was  told  that  no  support  could  be  given  him. 
"  Then,"  was  his  reply,  as  he  went  to  what  proved  the  gates 
of  death,  "  I  will  support  myself."  That  was  the  spirit  which 
has  ever  characterized  the  Anglo-Saxon  people ;  a  spirit  which 
can  only  be  built  up  by  years  of  freedom.  "  I  will  support 
myself !"  "  We  run  after  nobody !"  That  is  the  spirit  which 
characterizes  all  branches  of  the  Teutonic  family  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  as  well  as  the  other. 


34 

I  have  now  called  attention  to  two  of  the  strongest  race 
characteristics  of  the  English  people,  and  it  is  evident  that 
they  had  not  been  weakened  during  the  time  of  the  Plantage- 
nets.  I  come  now  to  the  Tudors.  They  were  inclined  to  be 
despotic  ;  but  even  under  the  Tudors,  the  spirit  of  the  English 
people  remained  the  same  ;  and  their  confidence  that  they 
were  entitled  to  all  the  rights  granted  by  Magna  Charta  and 
immemorial  custom  suffered  no  diminution.  The  Tudors  were 
so  situated  that  they  did  not  dare  to  go  beyond  a  certain  point. 
They  never  carried  arbitrary  rule  too  far.  They  showed  dis- 
cretion. They  always  stood  in  a  kind  of  awe  of  their  subjects. 
This  was  in  great  measure  due  to  the  fact  that  England  was  an 
island.  As  it  was  protected  from  invasion  by  the  sea,  it  was 
unnecessary  for  the  king  to  have  a  regular  army.  On  the 
continent  where  the  boundary  line  between  different  States 
might  be  only  an  imaginary  line,  or  a  river  that  could  easily 
be  forded,  there  was  a  necessity  of  being  always  prepared  for 
an  attack,  so  the  army  designed  for  the  country's  protection 
could  be  at  any  time  used  to  quell  any  opposition  on  the  part 
of  the  citizens.  The  Tudors  had  no  army.  So  they  did  not 
dare  to  trespass  on  the  rights  of  the  people  ;  for  they  had  no 
adequate  force  at  hand  to  intimidate  those  who  should  resist. 
Even  Henry  VIII.  did  little  to  lessen  permanently  the  bold 
and  self-reliant  spirit  which  had  grown  so  strong.  It  is  true 
that  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  was  one  of  terror.  The  heads 
of  all  who  displeased  him  rolled  from  the  block.  But  strangely 
his  policy  was  of  a  kind  that  did  not  bring  any  permanent 
injury  to  the  liberties  of  the  country.  The  policy  which  he 
adopted  had  been  suggested  by  Thomas  Cromwell,  a  man 
whose  character  is  one  of  the  inscrutable  mysteries  of  history. 
Little  is  known  of  his  early  life,  except  that  he  had  been  in 
Italy,  and  it  is  quite  evident  that  he  had  profited  by  the  writ- 
ings of  Machiavelli.  He  conceived  a  definite  aim  of  carrying 
on  the  government  in  such  a  way  as  to  put  all  power  into  the 


35 

hands  of  Henry  and  make  him  absolute.  But  instead  of 
openly  appearing  as  the  foe  of  the  national  liberties,  he  used 
Parliament  as  his  tool,  and  made  the  old  forms  of  constitu- 
tional freedom  serve  as  the  instruments  of  his  tyranny.  The 
whole  nation  was  panic  stricken  ;  but  they  did  not  realize  that 
all  was  part-  of  a  plan  to  enslave  them.  Every  new  step  was 
taken,  every  new  measure  was  carried  through  with  such 
adroitness,  that  the  people  thought  it  was  the  work  of  their 
own  Parliament.  They  never  lost  faith  in  themselves. 

Yet  all  were  not  thus  blind.  Under  the  very  eye  of  the 
king,  Sir  Thomas  More,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  friends 
of  the  "new  learning,"  dared  to  publish  his  "Utopia,"  in 
which  he  declaimed  against  the  prevalent  tyranny.  He  de- 
scribed an  ideal  country  where  flourished  public  security, 
religious  tolerance,  equality,  brotherhood,  freedom.  He  went 
further.  He  advocated  the  principle  that  a  sovereign  should 
be  removed  on  the  mere  suspicion  of  a  design  to  enslave  the 
people.  He  hints  that  there  was  at  that  very  time  an  attempt 
to  do  this  in  England  ;  that  the  law  courts  were  lending  them- 
selves to  the  assistance  of  those  who  were  bent  on  destroying 
English  freedom.  He  says  that  the  maxim  was  beginning  to 
be  avowed  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong ;  that  there  were 
those  who  claimed  that  not  only  the  property  but  the  persons 
of  all  subjects  in  the  realm  are  the  king's,  and  that  a  subject 
has  a  right  to  no  more  than  the  king's  goodness  thinks  fit  not 
to  take. 

Queen  Elizabeth  tried  to  carry  on  her  government  according 
to  the  policy  of  her  father,  by  managing  Parliament,  and 
packing  it  with  the  nominees  of  the  Crown.  But  with  the 
spread  of  new  religious  views,  and  with  the  increasing  intelli- 
gence of  the  people,  this  became  every  year  more  and  more 
difficult.  The  nation  was  learning  to  rely  on  itself.  A  new 
generation  of  Englishmen  had  grown  up,  who  felt  that  they 
ought  to  have  a  share  in  the  control  of  their  own  affairs. 


36 

Cromwell,  in  carrying  out  his  policy  in  the  reign  of  her  father, 
had  found  it  to  be  so  great  an  advantage  to  have  it  appear 
that  Parliament  had  authorized  every  arbitrary  measure,  that 
he  had  taken  pains  to  obtain  its  sanction  for  measures  which 
had  before  been  considered  as  belonging  specially  to  the  king's 
prerogative ;  such  as  questions  about  trade,  questions  respect- 
ing religion,  even  matters  of  state,  which  never  before  had 
been  submitted  to  Parliament.  Elizabeth's  own  title  to  the 
Crown  rested  on  a  Parliamentary  statute.  In  conformity  with 
what  had  become  a  precedent,  Parliament  continued  after  the 
death  of  Henry  YIII.  to  take  action  respecting  such  matters. 
They  even,  when  they  saw  fit,  dared  to  dictate  to  the  Queen 
what  her  policy  should  be.  Elizabeth  was  indignant.  Mr. 
Green  tells  us  that  on  one  occasion  she  complained  to  the 
Spanish  ambassador — "  They  have  acted  like  rebels.  They 
have  dealt  with  me  as  they  would  not  have  dealt  with  my 
father.  I  cannot  tell  what  these  devils  want !"  The  ambassa- 
dor replied :  "  They  want  liberty,  madam,  and  if  princes  do 
not  look  to  themselves,  and  work  together  to  put  such  people 
down,  they  will  find  before  long  what  all  this  is  coming  to." 
But  Elizabeth  was  forced  to  submit,  and  she  even  solemnly 
declared  to  the  Commons  that  "she  did  not  mean  to  prejudice 
any  part  of  the  liberties  heretofore  granted  them." 

The  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  marks  the  commencement 
of  a  new  era  in  English  history.  During  all  her  long  life,  the 
aspect  of  things  was  changing.  England  was  slowly  beginning 
to  take  a  place  among  the  European  States  as  an  important 
power.  As  we  now  look  back  to  the  period  before  her  time, 
it  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  that  the  England  of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  not  what  England  has  been  since.  So  many 
people  are  deceived  by  the  exaggerated  estimate  which  Henry 
YIII.  put  on  his  own  importance,  and  have  been  led  to  sup- 
pose that  he  was  really  something  like  the  equal  of  Charles  Y. 
and  Francis  I.  in  power  and  influence.  But  it  should  not  be 


37 

forgotten  that  the  chief  importance  of  England  at  that  tune 
arose  from  the  fact  that  the  political  strength  of  those  two 
great  monarchs  was  so  nearly  balanced  that  it  was  for  their 
interest  to  court  the  king  of  even  a  third-rate  nation  as 
a  make-weight.  England  was  then  the  make-weight  in 
European  politics. 

The  real  position  of  Henry  VIII.  may  be  illustrated  by  a 
conversation  reported  in  a  letter  to  Francis  I.  by  the  French 
ambassador  in  London,  which  appears  in  the  last  volume  of 
the  English  state  papers  just  published.  Henry  VIII.  was 
talking  with  him  in  his  usual  braggadocio  style,  declaiming 
about  what  he  intended  to  do,  and  what  he  should  require  of 
the  king,  when  the  ambassador,  after  having  respectfully  heard 
him  through,  quietly  responded :  "  Your  Majesty,  that  means 
war  " — and  the  blustering  king  was  brought  to  the  realization 
of  his  own  real  weakness,  and  at  once  changed  his  tone. 

The  early  years  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  were  one 
long  struggle  for  national  existence.  England  was  saved  from 
destruction  only  by  the  jealousies  of  her  powerful  neighbors. 
Even  at  home,  her  own  people  were  ever  ready  to  fly  at  each 
other's  throats,  and  she  did  not  dare  to  take  sides  with  either 
party.  Her  real  genius  displayed  itself  in  her  make-shift 
policy.  To  keep  everything  as  quiet  as  possible  was  what  she 
aimed  at,  and  to  accomplish  this  she  did  not  hesitate  to  tell  the 
most  unblushing  falsehoods  even  to  her  ministers  of  state. 
Elizabeth  did  not  like  the  Puritans,  but  during  all  her  reign 
she  was  obliged  to  trust  them,  and  even  to  court  them.  The 
intelligent,  the  educated,  the  active  men  of  the  country  were 
to  a  great  extent  of  that  party.  But  even  if  they  had  not  been, 
she  did  not  dare  to  rely  upon  their  opponents.  "Whether  she 
liked  it  or  not,  she  even  had  to  fill  the  Episcopal  Sees,  when 
they  became  vacant,  with  the  men  who  had  been  exiled  during 
the  Marian  persecutions,  and  had  learned  their  theology  from 
the  Calvinistic  reformers  on  the  continent.  For  political  rea- 


38 

sons  she  was  obliged  also  to  help  with  her  armies  the  Hugue- 
nots in  France,  and  the  Hollanders  in  the  Low  Countries,  and 
the  men  who  served  in  those  campaigns  came  back  with  the 
love  of  liberty  and  religion  intensified.  They  had  witnessed 
the  atrocities  for  which  Philip  II.  was  responsible ;  they  had 
admired  the  heroic  efforts  of  the  Netherlanders  to  shake  off  the 
Spanish  yoke ;  they  had  seen  the  sacrifices  that  the  country- 
men of  "William  the  Silent  were  willing  to  make  to  achieve 
their  political  and  religious  independence ;  they  had  learned  to 
disregard  the  f  ulminations  of  the  once  dreaded  pope  ;  they  had 
faced  the  best  soldiers  of  Spain  and  Italy  on  many  a  hard- 
fought  field  and  had  seen  them,  time  and  again,  skip  like  lambs 
before  their  victorious  arms.  Mr.  Markham,  in  his  Life  of  Sir 
Francis  and  Sir  Horace  Yere,  says  that  at  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth,  "  there  was  scarcely  a  man  in  England  who  had 
not  either  himself  served  in  the  Low  Countries,  or  had  not  a 
relative  or  neighbor  who  had."  On  the  return  of  these  men 
to  England,  they  spread  in  every  direction  the  new  ideas  re- 
specting religion  and  liberty  which  they  had  learned. 

Those  campaigns  in  the  Netherlands  are  of  special  interest 
to  us  as  Americans.  It  is  true  that  all  the  history  of  England 
which  we  have  been  reviewing  is  of  interest  as  a  part  of  our 
own  history.  When  we  go  back  to  those  centuries,  we  are  on 
our  own  ground.  Through  all  those  centuries,  our  ancestors 
stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  ancestors  of  the  men  who 
to-day  call  themselves  Englishmen.  All  of  this  history  is  as 
full  of  personal  interest  to  us  as  it  is  to  any  of  them.  It  is  not 
one  whit  more  theirs  than  it  is  ours.  But  we  have  reached  now 
a  period  when  we  can  single  out  individuals  and  trace  the  in- 
fluences which  prepared  them  for  their  work  in  this  country. 
Those  campaigns  in  the  Netherlands  not  only  educated  the 
men  who  were  to  figure  in  the  coming  Revolution  in  England, 
but  also  the  men  to  whom  our  New  England  ancestors  looked 
for  leadership  in  their  military  enterprises.  I  turn  in  the  Bio- 


39 

graphical  Dictionary  to  the  name  of  our  earliest  Connecticut 
soldier,  the  hero  of  the  Pequot  war,  and  read  :  "  JOHN  MASON, 
trained  to  arms  in  the  Netherlands,  under  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax." I  read  also :  "  MILES  STANDISH,  trained  under  Sir 
Horace  Yere,  and  served  in  the  army  of  the  Netherlands ;"  and 
so  LION  GAKDINEK,  and  WINSLOW,  and  others.  The  soldiers 
who  went  to  the  Netherlands  were  either  Puritans  or  men  who 
were  sure  to  become  Puritans  after  their  first  campaign. 

The  closing  years  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  were 
crowned  with  success.  She  had  triumphed  over  all  her  ene- 
mies at  home  and  abroad.  The  Spaniard  was  no  longer  feared. 
England  had  become  an  important  power  among  the  nations  of 
Europe.  "Wealth  and  intelligence  had  multiplied  among  the 
people.  Mr.  Green  tells  us  that  one  London  merchant,  Thomas 
Sutton,  at  his  own  expense  founded  the  great  hospital  and 
school  of  the  Charter  House ;  another,  Hugh  Myddleton, 
brought  the  New  River  from  its  springs  at  Chadwell  and  Am- 
well  to  supply  London  with  pure  water.  A  new  architecture, 
too,  began  to  testify  that  even  the  tastes  of  the  people  were 
improving,  and  their  ideas  of  comfort.  The  vast  and  beautiful 
cathedrals  in  England  and  on  the  continent  that  travelers  so 
much  admire,  the  picturesque  medieval  castles,  which  had  ex- 
isted for  centuries  before  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  had  been  no 
index  of  what  was  the  social  life  of  the  people.  The  cathe- 
drals had  been  built  when  art  was  religion.  The  church  in 
those  days  was  what  a  hundred  other  buildings  combine  to 
make  up  at  the  present  time.  The  church  was  the  town  hall, 
the  concert  room,  the  theatre,  the  school,  the  newsroom,  the 
vestry,  all  in  one.  The  reason  that  those  vast  cathedrals  had 
been  built  was  that,  at  a  time  when  most  people  lived  in  hov- 
els, the  church  afforded  a  place  of  meeting  for  the  whole  neigh- 
boring population.  Each  cathedral  was  the  poor  man's  palace 
as  well  as  that  of  the  prince,  the  poor  man's  castle  as  well  as 
that  of  the  noble,  where  no  enemy  could  reach  him  to  do  him 


40 

harm.  The  castles  of  the  nobles  were  only  fortresses,  and  the 
dwelling  rooms  in  them  were  utterly  cheerless.  But  now,  as  the 
result  of  the  growing  wealth,  buildings  of  a  different  character 
began  to  be  erected,  and  that  Elizabethan  architecture  arose 
which  many  persons  suppose  to  have  been  only  one  of  various 
styles  which  then  everywhere  met  the  eye.  Instead  of  this, 
the  Elizabethan  houses  were  only  the  first  attempt  at  anything 
ornate  or  convenient. 


Now  this  was  the  period  in  which  the  men  who  settled  New 
Haven  were  born.  These  were  the  influences  which  sur- 
rounded their  childhood.  I  have  only  attempted  to  give  the 
broadest  outline  of  some  of  the  more  important  forces  which 
had  made  the  nation  what  it  then  was.  I  offer  no  apology  for 
not  attempting  anything  in  the  way  of  detail.  The  time  at 
my  command  does  not  admit  of  it.  The  details  have  been 
rehearsed  in  your  hearing  a  hundred  times.  I  have  thought 
that  some  such  comprehensive  sketch  as  I  have  attempted 
might  present  something  more  of  novelty.  I  have  wished  only 
to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  as  far  back  in  history  as 
we  can  go — nearly  two  thousand  years — it  had  been  the  race 
characteristic  of  the  English  people  to  be  predisposed  to  be 
religious,  and  to  cherish  the  love  of  freedom.  It  had  been 
even  a  passion  with  them  to  take  care  of  their  own  affairs. 
They  had  ever  been  a  practical,  a  sensible,  a  level-headed  peo- 
ple. These  race  characteristics  had  survived  all  the  attempts 
of  the  Tudor  kings  to  curb  and  destroy  them,  so  that  at  the 
death  of  Queen  Elizabeth  they  were  actually  stronger  than 
ever  before.  The  influences  which  had  followed  in  the  train 
of  the  "  new  learning,"  and  above  all  the  publication  of  the 
Bible,  had  educated  a  class  of  men  who  were  determined  to 
think  for  themselves,  and  who  were  pervaded  with  an  intense 
feeling  of  individual  responsibility  to  God  for  all  that  they  did. 


Speaking  of  these  men,  Mr.  Taine  says,  that  "  disdaining  all 
the  equivocations  of  worldly  morality,  they  had  enthroned 
conscientious  labor  in  the  workshop,  probity  in  the  counting 
house,  truth  in  the  tribunal,  purity  in  the  domestic  hearth. 
They  were  attentive  to  the  least  requirements  of  duty.  With 
fixed  determination  and  with  inexhaustible  patience,  courage, 
sacrifice,  they  were  ready  to  bear  all,  and  do  all,  rather  than 
fail  in  the  least  injunction  of  moral  justice  and  Bible  law." 

From  this  moment,  the  future  of  the  English  people  was 
assured.  Not  in  vain  had  been  the  sobriety  and  seriousness 
which  had  marked  the  race  from  the  first ; — not  in  vain  that 
disposition  to  inquire  about  the  "  obscure  beyond  "  that  readi- 
ness to  respond  loyally  to  every  appeal  to  duty ; — not  in  vain 
that  remarkable  aptitude  for  self-government.  The  soil  had 
been  long  preparing  for  the  seed,  and  now  that  it  had  been 
sowed,  there  could  be  no  question  what  would  be  the  harvest. 

The  Bible  was  hailed  as  giving  an  explanation  of  all  the 
dark  enigmas  that  had  perplexed  so  many  generations.  Men 
no  longer  rested  satisfied  with  a  mere  outward  connection  with 
the  church.  They  no  longer  resigned  all  the  great  issues  of 
life  and  death  to  a  priesthood.  Each  man  realized  that  he  sus- 
tained a  personal  relation  to  God,  as  truly  as  if  he  were  alone 
in  the  universe  with  his  Creator.  He  saw  now  what  was  the 
meaning  of  life.  The  here  and  the  hereafter  were  parts  of  the 
same  existence.  He  was  placed  in  this  world  to  develop  his 
own  individual  character  and  fit  himself  for  the  service  of  God 
hereafter.  The  Bible  prescribed  the  rule  of  conduct  which  he 
was  to  follow.  The  kingdom  of  God  had  been  set  up  on  earth 
and  he  was  to  be,  in  every  relation  of  life,  loyal  to  its  interests, 
and  thus  prepare  himself  for  the  service  of  God  in  heaven. 
This  was  Puritanism ;  and  to-day,  among  English  speaking 
people,  this  is  everywhere  accepted  as  essential  to  a  true  reli- 
gious life,  among  those  who  are  not  distinctively  Puritan,  as 
truly  as  among  those  who  acknowledge  their  Puritan  descent. 


42 

Even  in  the  Roman  Catholic  church,  it  is  now  everywhere  pro- 
claimed in  all  Protestant  countries,  that  the  mere  formal  con- 
nection with  that  particular  church,  and  external  conformity  to 
its  prescribed  ritual,  is  useless. 


Now  it  was  when  such  a  state  of  things  had  come  to  exist  in 
England,  that  a  king  succeeded  to  the  throne,  in  accordance 
with  the  theory  of  dynastic  rule,  who  was  of  a  different  race. 
It  is  true  that  his  grandfather's  grandfather  had  been  an 
English  king,  and  so  it  may  be  said  that  one-sixteenth  part 
of  him  was  of  English  extraction ;  but  he  had  nothing  in 
common  with  the  people  over  whom  he  came  to  rule.  He 
did  not  understand  them,  and  he  remained  through  life  a 
stranger  to  all  their  thoughts  and  traditions.  He  belonged  to 
a  family  which  for  a  hundred  years  had  been  engaged  in  a 
fierce  struggle  to  maintain  their  position  against  warring  fac- 
tions of  nobles.  He  himself  had  suffered  humiliations  which 
had  embittered  all  his  feelings,  and  made  him  the  suspicious 
and  determined  enemy  of  all  that  might  in  any  way  oppose 
his  will.  He  came  to  England  with  the  settled  determination 
to  stem  the  current  of  national  feeling  which  had  been  for 
so  many  centuries  steadily  setting  towards  a  more  enlarged 
freedom.  I  do  not  propose  to  characterize  James  I.  Every 
new  historian  who  writes  about  him  has  sought  to  tax  all  the 
resources  of  the  English  language  to  express  contempt  of  his 
ridiculous  self-conceit,  his  unbounded  pride,  his  want  of  tact, 
his  pedantry,  and  his  hundred  weaknesses.  Believing  that  he 
had  a  divine  right  to  rule,  he  soon  avowed  that  there  were  no 
limits  to  the  royal  prerogative.  At  a  time  when  religion  was 
a  subject  in  which  every  one  felt  a  most  absorbing  interest, 
and  when  intelligence  was  so  widely  diffused  that  the  people 
understood  what  were  the  interests  of  the  nation,  and  felt  that 
they  had  a  right  through  their  representatives  in  Parliament 


43 

to  have  a  share  in  the  conduct  of  affairs,  James  attempted  to 
exercise  a  more  exclusive  control  over  all  that  pertained  to 
church  and  state,  than  any  king  who  had  gone  before  him. 
He  openly  expressed  contempt  for  the  public  policy  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  and  the  nation  heard  with  amazement  that  he  was 
making  peace  proposals  to  the  Spaniards,  that  he  was  nego- 
tiating with  the  pope,  and  that  he  was  denouncing  the  Hol- 
landers as  rebels.  As  his  lofty  ideas  of  absolute  power  began 
to  be  developed  more  fully,  he  ran  counter  to  the  prejudices 
of  all  classes  in  the  realm.  The  Roman  Catholics  were  so 
enraged  that  they  formed  the  gunpowder  plot.  The  Puritans 
were  insulted  and  browbeaten.  He  threatened  that  they 
should  be  "  harried  out  of  the  land."  The  nobles  were  exas- 
perated by  the  sale  of  new  peerages  and  even  high  offices 
of  state.  Parliaments  were  prorogued.  The  judges  were 
reduced  to  be  the  servants  of  his  will ;  the  course  of  justice 
was  tampered  with ;  new  offences  were  created  by  proclama- 
tion ;  new  penalties,  without  the  act  of  Parliament ;  offenders 
were  brought  before  courts  that  had  no  legal  jurisdiction. 
Yet  when  did  an  unscrupulous  king  ever  find  lack  of  courtiers 
to  give  him  help  and  encouragement  ?  Soon  they  proclaimed 
the  principle  that  was  afterwards  reduced  to  a  system  by  Sir 
Robert  Filmer,  that  "  the  subject  has  no  positive  rights  in 
behalf  of  which  he  may  decline  illegal  requisitions."  That  he 
is  "  bound  to  obey  the  king's  command  against  law,  nay,  in 
some  cases,  against  divine  laws."  Preachers  were  rewarded, 
and  advanced  in  position,  for  teaching  that  "  the  king  might 
take  the  subject's  money  at  his  pleasure,  and  no  one  might 
refuse  his  demand  on  penalty  of  damnation."  The  university 
of  Oxford  pronounced  a  solemn  decree  that  it  is  "in  no  case 
lawful  for  subjects  to  make  use  of  force  against  their  princes," 
and  all  persons  promoted  to  degrees  were  compelled  to  sub- 
scribe this  article.  A  little  later  this  same  university  anathe- 
mized  as  "false,  seditious,  and  impious,"  the  doctrine  that 


44 

civil  authority  is  derived  from  the  people.  It  was  declared 
that  there  could  be  no  release  from  this  thraldom.  The  sub- 
ject could  not  divest  himself  of  the  allegiance  which  he  owed 
to  the  Lord's  anointed.  As  long  as  he  had  life,  he  was 
amenable,  wherever  he  might  go,  to  the  despotic  power  of  the 
Star  Chamber  and  the  Court  of  High  Commission. 

Contemporaneous  with  the  innovations,  almost  countless  in 
number,  which  were  going  on  in  the  government  of  the 
church  and  the  state,  public  attention  was  called  to  a  series 
of  scandals  connected  with  the  raising  of  the  so-called  "  Favor- 
ites" to  the  highest  offices  of  the  government,  which  even  now 
cannot  be  read  without  amazement  and  disgust.  There  was 
the  divorce  of  Essex,  and  the  marriage  of  his  worthless  wife, 
Catherine  Howard,  to  the  equally  worthless  Scotch  page,  Carr, 
who  was  elevated  to  the  peerage  as  Viscount  Rochester.  There 
was  the  murder  of  Sir  John  Overbury  ;  and,  with  the  fall  of 
Somerset,  the  raising  of  the  shallow  and  unprincipled  Villiers 
to  the  head  of  affairs,  as  Duke  of  Buckingham.  The  Court 
was  thoroughly  corrupt,  and  it  became  publicly  known  that 
great  nobles  had  been  playing  the  part  of  panders  ;  that  high 
officers  of  state  had  been  in  league  with  cheats,  and  astrologers, 
and  poisoners.  The  corruption  which  was  so  conspicuous  in 
the  Court  was  spreading  also  among  all  classes  of  the  people. 
The  young  men  of  wealth  who  were  sent  to  travel  on  the 
continent  that  they  might  learn  what  was  called  the  "  Italian 
polish,"  came  back  in  too  many  instances  mere  fops  and 
profligates,  caring  for  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth  save  personal 
enjoyment.  Italy  was  then  the  center  from  whence  spread  to 
all  nations  who  had  any  connection  with  her,  every  form  of 
crime  and  wickedness.  Sins  were  practiced  there  worthy  of 
the  doom  of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain.  But  in  Italy  vice  was 
veiled,  and  some  show  of  decency  was  preserved.  Vice  'was 
deprived  of  its  grossness  and  made  attractive.  But  when  the 
vices  of  the  polished  races  around  the  Mediterranean  were 


45 

copied  by  the  coarser  people  of  England,  there  was  an  exhibi- 
tion of  low  sensuality  which  was  absolutely  disgusting  and 
almost  beyond  belief.  Even  the  few  details,  which  the  histo- 
rians of  the  period  give  as  illustrations  of  what  they  assure 
their  readers  are  the  least  objectionable  examples  of  it,  are 
simply  sickening.  The  whole  reign  of  James  was  a  reign  of 
shame.  There  was  nothing  to  redeem  it.  His  foreign  policy 
was  no  better  than  his  home  policy.  It  was  so  weak  and 
vacillating  that  the  nation  was  humiliated  and  exasperated  ; 
and  England,  which,  at  the  death  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  had 
rank  among  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  was  disgraced,  and 
was  regarded  as  a  mere  satellite  of  Spain. 


This  exhibition  of  the  state  of  things  in  England  during 
the  reign  of  James  I. — inadequate  as  the  limits  of  this  Address 
have  necessitated  it  to  be — will  serve  at  least  to  show  what 
were  some  of  the  influences  which  moulded  the  characters  of 
the  founders  of  New  Haven  and  of  New  England  during  their 
early  manhood.  Those  men  were  probably  for  the  most  part 
the  children  of  the  original  proprietors  of  the  soil  in  England, 
whose  pedigree  went  back  of  the  Norman  intruders.  They 
belonged  to  the  great  party  which  was  still  true  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  traditions  of  liberty,  and  which  felt  it  to  be  a  sacred 
duty  to  uphold  the  national  honor,  at  home  and  abroad.  With 
all  sincerity,  and  with  all  the  seriousness  and  practical  spirit 
of  their  race,  they  had  accepted  the  Bible  as  a  revelation  of 
God,  given  by  Him  to  regulate  their  daily  life.  They  were 
thoroughly  in  earnest — if  ever  men  were  in  this  world — in 
their  endeavor  to  conform  to  what  they  thought  to  be  the  veri- 
table commandments  of  God.  The  innovations  which  were 
being  made  in  the  government  of  the  State  as  well  as  that  of 
the  Church  caused  dismay  among  them.  The  increasing  cor- 
ruption of  morals  which  had  become  absolutely  disgusting,  and 


46 

of  which  most  persons  at  the  present  day  have  not  the  slightest 
conception,  affected  them  with  the  deepest  alarm.  Vice  was 
flaunting  itself  openly.  Virtue,  purity,  religion  were  boldly 
ridiculed.  Some  new  public  or  private  scandal  was  almost 
every  day  exposed.  The  Puritans  strove  valiantly  in  the  con- 
test which  was  then  going  on.  It  was  a  many-sided  contest, 
waged  against  absolutism  and  against  vice.  There  was  a  dis- 
play of  heroism  on  their  part  that  is  now  fully  recognized  by 
all  the  great  historians  of  the  period.  Carlyle,  Goldwin  Smith, 
Charles  Kingsley,  Green,  and  so  many  others,  have  exposed  the 
foolish  and  malicious  libels  with  which  those  who  have  been  in 
sympathy  with  the  court  party  have  striven  in  every  succeed- 
ing age  to  make  the  Puritans  seem  hateful,  and  the  most  elo- 
quent pages  of  these  writers  have  been  those  in  which  they 
have  sought  to  do  honor  to  the  magnanimity  and  the  true  man- 
liness of  the  Puritan  character.  But,  at  the  time,  all  that  could 
be  done  by  the  Puritans  to  preserve  the  liberties  of  England 
seemed  unavailing.  Their  leaders  in  parliament  and  in  the 
church  were  fined  and  imprisoned,  and  forced  to  flee  for  their 
lives  to  the  continent.  Hope  itself  was  almost  dead. 

It  may  assist  us  in  the  attempt  to  understand  the  condition 
of  things  in  England  at  that  time  if  we  recall  what  was  the 
state  of  feeling  in  the  Northern  States  during  the  years  pre- 
ceding our  civil  war.  Public  sentiment  here  was  almost  unani- 
mous as  to  the  evils  of  slavery ;  but  the  slave  power  was  so 
intrenched  in  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  that  all 
effort  to  put  limits  to  its  increase  seemed  futile.  It  was  always 
and  everywhere  aggressive.  The  Missouri  Compromise  had 
been  followed  by  nullification  in  South  Carolina,  by  the  an- 
nexation of  Texas,  by  war  with  Mexico,  by  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  by  the  outrages  in  Kansas,  by  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  by  legislation  in  favor  of  slavery.  The 
claim  was  made  at  last  that  slave  ownership  should  be  pro- 
tected throughout  the  whole  national  domain.  Our  whole 


47 

political  life  was  affected  by  it.  Too  many  of  our  ablest  states- 
men were  so  overawed  by  the  slave  interest  that  they  feared 
to  offer  any  resistance.  Those  who  endeavored  to  stand  up 
against  it  were  ridiculed.  Even  the  conscience  of  the  nation 
seemed  to  be  growing  indifferent.  The  friends  of  liberty 
looked  around  with  doubt  and  dismay.  But  it  was  vastly  worse 
in  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

After  James  came  Charles  I.  and  the  ascendancy  of  Buck- 
ingham, the  arrest  and  imprisonment  and  death  of  Sir  John 
Eliot,  the  dissolution  of  parliament,  the  announcement  of  the 
king  that  he  would  rule  without  a  parliament,  the  forbidding 
any  one  to  even  speak  of  a  parliament  ever  being  held  again, 
the  despotism  of  the  Privy  Council,  the  Star  Chamber,  and 
the  Court  of  High  Commission,  government  by  proclamation, 
forced  loans,  monopolies,  feudal  and  forest  extortions,  ship 
money,  the  tenure  of  the  judges  made  to  depend  on  the  king's 
pleasure,  the  Protestant  cause  on  the  continent  openly  aban- 
doned, Tilly  and  Wallenstein  carrying  all  before  them  in 
Germany. 

What  wonder  that  many  of  the  Puritans  began  to  question 
whether  it  was  not  better  to  leave  England  and  lind  a  new 
home  beyond  the  ocean.  At  last  a  little  band  of  colonists 
established  themselves  at  Plymouth.  Another  and  much  more 
important  colony  was  begun  at  Boston,  and  then  a  company  of 
London  merchants,  with  the  Rev.  John  Davenport  as  their 
leader,  conceived  the  idea  of  a  new  colony,  of  which  this  city 
to-day  is  the  outgrowth. 


It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  this  Address  to  give  any 
account  of  the  New  Haven  colony,  or  of  the  remarkable  man 
who  was  its  leader ;  yet  I  ask  your  indulgence — which  I  fear 
has  already  been  too  heavily  taxed — while,  very  briefly,  I 
remind  you  that  John  Davenport  had  conceived  a  plan  of  gov- 


48 

ernment  far  in  advance  of  anything  that  had  been  attempted 
before ;  and  in  his  attempts  to  carry  out  his  conception,  and 
protect  the  colony  from  all  hostile  interference  from  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  country  which  they  had  abandoned,  he  showed 
qualities  of  statesmanship  for  which  he  is  to  be  ranked  among 
the  ablest  men  of  his  day.  It  has  been  claimed  that  the  con- 
stitution which  was  framed  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower 
marked  a  new  epoch  ;  but  the  men  of  Plymouth  were  not  en- 
tirely disentangled  from  the  old  traditions.  They  acknowl- 
edged themselves  to  be  still  under  English  rule.  They  did  not 
even  desire  to  shake  it  off.  They  subscribed  themselves  "  the 
loyal  subjects  of  our  dread  sovereign  King  James ;"  and  what 
they  did  they  declared  was  done  for  the  "  honor  of  our  King 
and  country."  The  colonists  who  settled  Massachusetts  not 
only  made  no  progress  in  theory  upon  the  colony  of  Plymouth, 
but  they  did  not  go  as  far.  They  went  out  from  England 
under  English  charters.  Their  claim  to  the  rights  which  they 
asserted  was  founded,  in  their  estimation,  on  the  fact  that  they 
were  free-born  Englishmen.  And  it  is  questionable  whether 
in  England  to  this  day  civil  rights  are  supposed  to  rest  on  any- 
thing more  venerable  or  more  sacred  than  the  provisions  of 
Magna  Charta  and  the  Common  Law.  The  colonists,  also,  who 
settled  the  river  towns  on  the  Connecticut  did  not  forget  that 
they,  too,  were  Englishmen.  For  months  they  supposed  that 
they  were  within  the  patent  of  the  old  Massachusetts  colony, 
and  acted  accordingly.  Not  so  John  Davenport  and  Governor 
Eaton.'  They  formed  their  colony  in  London  for  the  express 
purpose  of  carrying  out  new  and  peculiar  views  respecting 
human  rights  and  civil  government.  They  claimed  that  there 
were  rights  which  were  theirs,  not  because  they  were  English- 
men, but  because  they  were  men.  They  fell  back  on  the  natu- 
ral and  inherent  rights  which  belonged  to  them  by  virtue  of 
their  manhood.  They  had  shaped  their  views  into  a  well- 
digested  plan.  They  were  of  the  opinion  that  if  they  went 


49 

beyond  the  limits  of  any  existing  English  government,  they 
were  free  to  expatriate  themselves.  And  when  they  reached 
Boston,  on  their  way  to  a  new  home,  though  they  were  invited 
and  urged  to  remain  there,  they  refused,  and  would  not  be 
drawn  aside  from  their  purpose  by  the  great  inducements 
which  were  offered.  It  was  their  plan  to  establish  a  State  by 
mutual  agreement,  on  Christian  principles,  beyond  the  reach 
of  English  authority,  and  without  any  reference  of  any  kind 
whatever,  express  or  implied,  to  the  government  of  the  king  or 
to  any  of  the  institutions  of  their  native  land.  Here  was  the 
first  example  of  such  a  government  on  the  American  continent. 


While  speaking  so  briefly  of  this  remarkable  plan  of  theirs, 
so  well  considered,  so  much  more  far  reaching  than  anything 
conceived  of  by  either  of  the  other  colonies,  I  do  not  know 
that  it  will  consist  with  the  seriousness  and  dignity  of  the 
subject,  or  of  the  present  occasion,  to  allude  to  the  fact  that 
it  has  been  reserved  for  the  present  generation  to  advance  a 
theory  that  the  colonists  who  founded  New  Haven  did  not 
come  here  with  any  such  high  purpose,  but  came  here  only  to 
trade.  It  is  true  that  as  sensible  and  practical  men,  knowing 
that  a  colony  which  is  to  be  prosperous  and  enduring  must 
have  some  means  of  support,  and  having  been  engaged  in 
commerce  at  home,  they  naturally  intended  to  go  on  with  the 
occupation  for  which  their  previous  pursuits  had  fitted  them. 
What  else  could  they  do  ?  They  were  not  tillers  of  the  soil. 
It  could  hardly  be  expected  that  such  men  would  be  satisfied 
to  go  so  far  without  some  plan  for  supporting  themselves. 
There  is  no  question  that  they  planned  to  trade  and  build  up 
here  a  commercial  city.  It  would  have  been  strange  if  they 
had  not  thought  of  some  way  to  provide  for  their  families 
and  themselves.  But  if  it  is  meant  that  those  London  mer- 
chants came  here  principally  for  purposes  of  gain,  no  state- 


50 

ment  could  be  more  preposterous.  I  hardly  need  to  repeat 
that  it  was  a  time  when  the  Anglo-Saxon  love  of  freedom 
which  had  been  growing  stronger  and  deeper  for  two  thousand 
years,  had  at  last  clashed  with  absolutism.  The  struggle 
which  had  begun  was  one  to  the  death.  All  England  was  at 
a  white  heat  on  the  subject  of  religion  and  free  government. 
John  Davenport  was  one  of  the  marked  men  among  the 
political  and  religious  leaders  of  the  time.  During  his  exile 
in  Holland,  he  had  given  much  thought  to  the  subject  of 
"civil  government,"  and  he  had  elaborated  original  views 
with  regard  to  it,  which  he  afterwards  published.  To  suppose 
that  such  a  man  as  he,  or  Governor  Eaton,  came  here  in  the 
early  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  to  "  make  money,"  is  under 
the  circumstances  even  more  absurd  than  to  suppose  that  the 
honored  champion  of  freedom,*  whose  voice  rang  out  from 
this  pulpit  so  boldly  for  fifty  years  against  American  slavery, 
could  have  left  New  Haven  just  when  the  excitement  preced- 
ing the  Civil  War  was  greatest,  and  gone  to  some  one  of  the 
Aleutian  Islands  to  make  money  by  engaging  in  the  seal 
fishery,  and  had  carried  with  him  the  ablest  of  the  men  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  gather  in  this  church  from  week  to 
week,  to  listen  to  his  preaching.  The  men  who  founded  New 
Haven  came  here  when  Cromwell  himself  was  debating  the 
question  whether  it  was  not  the  wisest  thing  for  the  cause  of 
English  liberty  to  cross  the  ocean  and  build  up  a  new  "  Eng- 
land." Among  the  New  Haven  men  were  some  of  his  own 
kinsmen  ;  and  when  the  Protector  had  succeeded  to  power,  he 
wrote  to  his  old  friends  in  this  town,  and  invited  them  to 
return.  Some  of  them  did  return.  Letters  were  also  sent  to 
John  Davenport,  to  Thomas  Hooker  of  Hartford,  and  John 
Cotton  of  Boston,  the  three  great  leaders  of  the  time  in  New 
England,  "earnestly  inviting  them  to  return  to  their  native 
country  for  a  season,  in  order  to  assist  in  conducting  to  a  happy 
*  Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  D.D. 


51 

issue  the  great  Revolution  then  in  progress  there."  Do  I  need 
to  say  more  than  that  this  theory  about  John  Davenport  is  too 
absurd  for  any  serious  answer  ? 


Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  passed  since  that  com- 
pany of  English  Christians  landed  on  these  shores,  and  to-day 
we  ask  ourselves  what  has  been  the  success  of  then*  enterprise. 
We  know  that  after  years  of  labor  and  discouragement,  it 
seemed  to  them  that  they  had  failed.  Their  colony  had  been 
the  wealthiest  of  all  the  colonies  that  had  come  to  America. 
It  seemed  to  have  the  fairest  hopes  of  success.  But  disaster 
after  disaster  had  befallen  it.  Yet  as  we  look  back  to-day,  we 
can  see  that  they  did  succeed,  and  that  their  success  has  been 
greater  than  even  their  highest  expectations.  They  hoped  to 
build  up  a  commercial  city,  and  here  is  a  city,  which  is,  at 
least,  half  as  large  as  what  was  known  distinctively  as  the 
"  City  of  London  "  at  the  time  they  left  it.  They  wished  to 
build  up  a  State  independent  of  English  control,  and  the  city 
they  founded  is  a  part  of  a  sovereign  State,  which  is  one  of 
the  great  powers  of  the  world,  with  a  much  larger  population 
than  that  of  all  the  English  islands  combined.  And  certainly 
no  city  in  the  land  did  more  to  prepare  the  way  for  American 
independence,  or  give  shape  to  the  present  government  of 
the  United  States.  Their  leading  idea  was  that  the  two  great 
bulwarks  of  a  State  should  be  religion  and  universal  education. 
This  idea  of  theirs  has  also  triumphed  everywhere  throughout 
the  whole  nation.  An  integral  part  of  their  plan  was  that  the 
city  they  founded  should  be  the  seat  of  a  university.  The  im- 
portance that  John  Davenport  attached  to  this  part  of  his  plan, 
as  it  has  always  seemed  to  me,  was  owing  in  great  measure  to 
what  he  had  seen  in  Leyden.  During  his  residence  there,  he 
was  a  witness  of  the  estimation  in  which  its  citizens  held  the 
famous  university  which  had  been  granted  to  them  by  William 


52 

of  Orange  "  with  advice  of  the  Estates,"  as  "  a  reward  for  their 
sufferings,  and  as  "  a  manifestation  of  the  gratitude  entertained 
by  the  people  of  Holland  and  Zealand  for  their  heroic  defence 
of  their  city  "  against  the  Spaniards.  It  should  not  be  for- 
gotten, too,  that  John  Davenport  had  the  satisfaction  before 
he  died  of  believing  that  he  had  succeeded  in  this,  and  that 
he  had  laid  the  foundation  of  a  college.  Almost  his  last 
official  act  here  was  to  draw  up  a  paper  in  which  he  spoke  of 
the  college  as  u  founded  and  begun."  And  although  that  in- 
stitution never  actually  rose  above  the  rank  of  a  Grammar 
School,  yet  it  is  due  to  the  memory  of  that  remarkable  man 
that  his  hopeful  words  should  be  remembered.  He  certainly 
was  the  pioneer  who  prepared  the  way  for  the  University, 
whose  influence  has  been  felt  throughout  the  world,  of  which 
his  son-in-law,  JAMES  PIEKPONT,  who  became  his  successor  and 
the  heir  of  his  plans  and  hopes,  was,  not  long  after,  the  founder. 


The  estimate  which  I  have  now  given  of  the  Puritan  charac- 
ter, I  doubt  not,  is  in  the  main  in  accordance  with  that  of  those 
of  you  who  have  thus  far  listened  to  me.  Yet  it  is  sometimes 
said,  even  by  the  admirers  of  the  heroism  of  the  Puritans,  and 
of  their  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  liberty  and  to  the  interests  of 
religion,  and  who  feel  deeply  the  indebtedness  to  them  of  all 
the  subsequent  generations  of  English-speaking  men  and  wo- 
men, that  after  all  they  were  not  people  whom  one  would  like 
to  live  with !  If  there  should  be  any  one  present  who  has  ever 
entertained  a  feeling  of  this  kind,  I  would  ask  him  who  there 
is  among  the  very  best  men  of  former  ages  who  have  really 
done  anything  for  their  own  generation,  or  for  mankind,  who 
would  be  an  agreeable  inmate  of  his  home,  under  the  changed 
conditions  of  life  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  generations  as  they  succeed  each  other 
are  each  moulded  by  the  experiences  through  which  they  have 


53 

had  to  pass  ?  One  generation  can  no  more  enter  into  the  feel- 
ings and  habits  of  the  generations  which  have  preceded,  or  con- 
form to  them,  than  a  child  can  enter  into  the  feelings  of  its 
parents  and  live  its  parents'  life  with  any  satisfaction.  In  ad- 
dition, it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  men  who  have  ever 
done  anything  of  value  for  their  generation  or  for  the  race 
have  been  forced  to  endure  sacrifices  and  hardships,  and  in  the 
terrible  ordeal  through  which  they  have  had  to  pass  have  neces- 
sarily acquired  a  fixedness  of  purpose,  a  sternness  of  manner, 
and  an  absorption  of  spirit,  which  accord  ill  with  the  ideas  and 
habits  of  those  whose  lot  has  been  cast  in  happier  times.  I  do 
not  think  that  Luther,  or  Augustine,  or  Chrysostom — I  do  not 
think  that  even  any  one  of  the  evangelists  or  apostles  them- 
selves, with  the  habits  of  an  oriental  who  lived  two  thousand 
years  ago, — would  be  found  to  accommodate  himself  to  our 
modes  of  life  in  such  a  way  that  we  should  find  him  to  be  a 
pleasant  person  to  have  in  our  houses.  Or  to  take  men  of  a 
different  class,  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  one,  no  matter 
how  much  he  cares  for  rank  or  display,  who  could  endure  to 
have  Charles  II. ,  or  Louis  XI V.,  or  Lord  Chesterfield,  or  Beau 
Brummell,  or  any  man  of  fashion  of  any  preceding  age,  as  the 
constant  companion  of  his  days. 

But  I  will  not  go  so  far  back  in  history  or  to  other  lands.  I 
will  remind  you  of  that  one  of  our  own  countrymen  to  whom 
the  heart  of  every  American  turns  with  greatest  reverence  and 
pride.  No  man  of  his  time  on  this  continent  had  greater  ad- 
vantages in  his  childhood  and  youth  than  "Washington.  He 
was  carefully  trained  in  literature,  in  manners,  and  in  every 
manly  accomplishment  by  a  relative  of  his  family,  who  had 
been  a  personal  friend  of  Addison  and  a  contributor  to  the 
Spectator,  who  had  held  a  high  social  position  in  England  as 
an  English  nobleman,  who  was  in  addition  a  Christian  gentle- 
man. At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  when  he  was  ap- 
pointed general  in  chief  of  the  American  army,  he  was  sup- 


54 

posed  to  be  the  richest  man  in  America,  and  had  always  lived 
in  a  style  which  few  could  imitate.  But  eight  years  of  the 
stern  experiences  of  war  made  a  change  in  the  whole  bearing 
of  the  handsome  young  officer  who  only  a  few  years  before  had 
visited  'New  England  for  the  first  time  on  horseback  with  a 
company  of  gay  young  friends,  and  the  men  of  his  own  time 
who  revered  him — some  of  whom  perhaps  would  have  died  for 
him — found  him  so  reticent,  so  dignified,  so  stern,  so  absorbed, 
that  all  who  approached  him  felt  under  restraint. 

It  must  be  so  necessarily.  Those  who  fight  the  great  battles 
of  life  come  out  scarred,  and  wearied,  and  worn.  Of  one  of 
the  most  accomplished  men  of  our  own  tune,  who  labored  for 
the  freedom  of  Italy,  we  read  that  after  the  failure  of  a  certain 
enterprise  which  cost  the  lives  of  some  of  his  dearest  friends, 
he  was  never  seen  to  smile.  Of  how  many  others  do  we  read 
that  even  after  success  had  crowned  their  labors,  they  them- 
selves lived  ever  after  under  the  shadow  of  some  great  grief. 
But  who  of  the  generations  who  will  reap  the  fruits  of  their 
efforts  will  ask  if  they  were  pleasant  people  to  live  with  ? 

I  believe  that  the  Puritans  were  naturally  as  genial  as  any 
class  of  Englishmen  or  Americans  to-day.  There  were  sour 
men  among  them,  I  doubt  not,  as  there  were  among  the  party 
whom  they  opposed.  Who  could  be  more  sour  than  Arch- 
bishop Laud  ?  If  you  have  any  doubts,  look  at  his  portrait ! 
Charles  Kingsley  says  of  one  of  his  heroes :  Did  his  being  a 
Puritan  "  prevent  his  being  six  feet  high  ?  Were  his 
shoulders  the  less  broad  for  it,  his  cheek  the  less  ruddy  for 
it  ?  He  wore  his  flaxen  hair  of  the  same  length  that  every 
one  now  wears  theirs,  instead  of  letting  it  hang  half-way  to 
his  waist  in  essenced  curls ;  but  was  he  therefore  the  less  of 
a  viking's  son,  bold  hearted  as  his  sea-roving  ancestors,  who 
won  the  Danelagh  by  Canute's  side?  ....  He  carried  a 
Bible  in  his  jack-boots ;  but  did  that  prevent  him,  as  Oliver 
rode  past  him  with  an  approving  smile  on  Naseby  field,  think- 


55 

ing  himself  a  very  handsome  fellow,  with  his  moustache  and 
imperial,  and  bright  red  coat,  and  cuirass  well  polished,  in 
spite  of  many  a  dint,  as  he  sate  his  father's  great  black  horse 
as  gracefully  and  firmly  as  any  long-locked  and  essenced  cava- 
lier in  front  of  him?  ....  No  poetry  in  him  as  the  long 
rapier  swung  round  his  head  five  minutes  later,  redder  and 
redder  at  every  sweep  ?  We  are  befooled  by  names  !  Call 
him  Crusader  instead  of  Roundhead,  and  he  seems  at  once 
(granting  him  only  sincerity,  which  he  had,  and  that  of  a  right 
awful  kind)  as  complete  a  knight-errant  as  ever  watched  and 
prayed,  ere  putting  on  his  spurs,  in  fantastic  Gothic  chapel, 
'  beneath  storied  windows  richly  dight.'  ....  JSTo  poetry  in 
those  old  Puritans  ?  Why  not  ?  They  were  men  of  like  pas- 
sions with  ourselves.  They  loved,  they  married,  they  brought 
up  children;  they  feared,  they  sinned,  they  sorrowed,  they 
fought — they  conquered  !  There  was  poetry  enough  in  them, 
be  sure — though  they  acted  it  like  men  instead  of  singing  it 
like  birds." 

There  was  a  time  when  it  might  possibly  have  been  worth 
while  to  make  some  reference  to  the  attempts  of  the  enemies 
of  the  Puritans  to  excite  prejudice  against  them  by  represent- 
ing them  as  gloomy  ascetics.  It  was  gravely  charged  against 
them  that  they  would  not  eat  mince  pies  or  plumb  puddings 
on  Christmas  day  !  But  the  reply  was  that  they  ate  them  on 
other  days  ;  and  every  one  knows  now  that  the  reason  they 
did  not  eat  them  publicly  at  Christmas  was,  that  to  do  so  had, 
in  the  popular  mind,  a  political  significance.  Just  as  in  this 
country,  not  very  long  ago,  many  very  cheerful  people  avoided 
wearing  a  white  hat  for  fear  that  it  might  be  supposed  that 
they  were  publicly  displaying  their  political  sympathies  for 
the  presidential  aspirations  of  Mr.  Horace  Greeley.  It  is  not 
very  long  ago  too,  that,  in  some  other  parts  of  the  United 
States,  loyal  men  were  unwilling  to  wear  gray  trowsers  or 
butternut  coats.  Does  any  one  believe  that  these  people  had 


56 

any  religious  objections  to  a  white  or  a  butternut  color,  or  that 
they  supposed  that  their  Maker  would  be  better  pleased  with 
them  if  they  dressed  themselves  all  over  in  regulation  blue  ? 
Lord  Macaulay  once  gave  utterance  to  an  ungenerous  fling  at 
the  Puritans.  He  said  that  they  opposed  bear-baiting,  not 
because  they  cared  for  the  pain  suffered  by  the  bear,  but  be- 
cause they  begrudged  the  spectators  the  pleasure  of  the  sport. 
He  was  answered  speedily,  that  he  had  spoken  more  truly 
than  he  thought.  The  Puritans  were  opposed  to  bear-baiting 
because  they  knew  that  a  people  who  could  take  pleasure  in 
witnessing  the  torture  to  which  a  dumb  animal  was  exposed, 
were  a  people  who  could  not  be  trusted  to  maintain  English 
liberty.  But  it  is  idle  to  treat  seriously  the  misrepresentations 
and  the  abuse  of  this  kind  which  has  been  heaped  upon  the 
Puritans. 

Undoubtedly  the  men  who  were  fined  and  imprisoned,  the 
men  who  were  forced  to  leave  their  native  land  and  make  a 
new  home  in  the  wilderness,  did  not  escape  some  of  the  marks 
of  the  hard  experiences  through  which  they  were  obliged  to 
pass.  They  bore  honorable  scars '  received  in  the  battle  they 
waged.  It  may  be  worth  while  then  to  see  what  description  of 
men  the  founders  of  New  Haven  really  were.  Of  Theophilus 
Eaton,  the  first  Puritan  Governor,  Dr.  Bacon  said,  as  the 
result  of  his  study  of  the  public  record  of  his  services :  "  I 
have  acquired  new  views  of  the  dignity  which  belongs  to  the 
place  of  the  civil  magistrate."  Hubbard,  the  historian  of 
Massachusetts,  who  was  one  of  his  contemporaries,  says  :  "  This 
man  had  in  him  great  gifts,  and  as  many  excellences  as  are 
usually  found  in  any  one  man.  He  had  an  excellent  princely 
face  and  port,  commanding  respect  from  all  others.  He  was  a 
good  scholar,  a  traveler,  a  great  reader ;  of  an  exceeding  steady 
and  even  spirit,  not  easily  moved  to  passion,  and  standing  un- 
shaken in  his  principles  when  once  fixed  upon  ;  of  a  profound 
judgment,  full  of  majesty  and  authority  in  his  judicatures,  so 


57 

that  it  was  a  vain  thing  to  offer  to  brave  him  out ;  and  yet  in 
his  ordinary  conversation,  and  among  friends,  of  such  pleasant- 
ness of  behavior  and  such  felicity  and  fecundity  of  harmless 
wit  as  can  hardly  be  paralleled."  Mather  declares  of  him  that 
"  for  a  score  of  years  he  was  the  glory  and  pillar  of  New 
Haven  colony."  He  says  of  him  :  "  He  carried  in  his  very 
countenance  a  majesty  which  cannot  be  described ;  and  in  his 
dispensations  of  justice,  he  was  a  mirror  for  the  most  iinitable 
impartiality  but  ungainsayable  authority  of  his  proceedings, 
being  awfully  sensible  of  the  obligations  which  the  oath  of  a 
judge  lays  upon  him.  Hence  he  who  would  most  patiently 
bear  hard  things  offered  to  his  person  in  private  cases,  would 
never  pass  by  any  public  affronts  or  neglects,  when  he  appeared 
under  the  character  of  a  magistrate.  But  he  still  was  the  guide 
of  the  blind,  the  staff  of  the  lame,  the  helper  of  the  widow  and 
orphan,  and  all  the  distressed.  None  that  had  a  good  cause 
was  afraid  of  coming  before  him."  The  same  writer  de- 
scribes him  also  as  he  appeared  at  home :  "  As  in  his  govern- 
ment of  the  commonwealth,  so  in  the  government  of  his 
family,  he  was  prudent,  serious,  happy  to  a  wonder;  and 
albeit  he  sometimes  had  a  large  family,  consisting  of  no  less 
than  thirty  persons,  yet  he  managed  them  with  such  an  even 
temper,  that  observers  have  affirmed  they  never  saw  a  house 
ordered  with  more  wisdom."  "  He  kept  an  honorable  and 
hospitable  table."  "  He  countenanced  the  addresses  unto  him- 
self of  the  children  and  servants  with  any  of  their  inquiries." 
And  we  find  still  another  witness  in  one  who  had  been  a  ser- 
vant in  his  family,  whose  beautiful  testimony  reminds  us  of 
what  that  ablest  of  all  modern  English  critics,  so  gifted  with 
the  power  of  insight — Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge — said  respect- 
ing the  character  of  Falconbridge,  in  "  King  John,"  and  the 
inferences  he  drew  respecting  his  courtesy  and  chivalrous 
spirit,  from  the  affectionate  language  of  the  reply  addressed  to 


58 

him  by  his  old  servant,  "James  Ghirney."  Falconbridge  re- 
quests him  to  withdraw,  saying, 

"James  Gurney,  wilt  thou  give  us  leave  awhile  ?" 
And  the  answer  is, 

"  Good  leave,  good  Philip." 
To  which  Falconbridge  replies, 

"James, 
There's  toys  abroad.    Anon  I'll  tell  thee  more." 

This  other  New  Haven  servant  could  say,  many  years  after  his 
master's  death :  "  Whatever  difficulty  in  my  daily  walk  I  now 
meet  withal,  still  something  that  I  either  saw  or  heard  in  my 
blessed  master  Eaton's  conversation,  helped  me  through  it  all." 


But  it  is  not  now  a  question  of  living  with  Theophilus 
Eaton,  or  with  the  founders  of  New  Haven,  or  even  with  any 
of  the  Puritans,  but  what  did  those  men  do  in  their  day  and 
generation ;  and  what  did  they  accomplish  ?  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  when  a  dynasty  which  can  hardly  be  called  English, 
put  forth  claims  to  a  right  to  dispose  absolutely  of  the  persons 
and  property  of  our  ancestors,  they  set  themselves  in  opposi- 
tion, and,  whether  we  should  like  to  live  with  them  or  not, 
they  saved  the  liberties  of  England,  and  have  moulded  the 
character  of  all  the  generations  which  have  followed — in  Eng- 
land as  well  as  in  America — to  a  far  greater  extent  than  is 
generally  supposed. 

There  are  crises  in  the  history  of  all  nations  when  the 
old  race  characteristics  are  either  intensified  or  greatly  modi- 
fied. You  are  aware  that  among  the  theories  which  have 
been  proposed  by  those  who  have  advocated  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,  one  of  the  most  ingenious  is  that  at  certain 
intervals  during  the  countless  aeons  of  the  world's  early  his- 


59 

tory,  there  has  been,  for  some  reason,  a  sudden  and  aston- 
ishing development  in  living  organisms,  "per  saltum"  as  it 
has  been  called,  or  by  a  leap.  The  theory  is  that  ages  have 
passed  in  which  the  different  species  have  remained  substan- 
tially the  same,  till  they  have  come  at  last  perhaps  under  the 
influence  of  some  new  force,  when  a  change  has  been  made 
"per  saltum"  or  at  once,  the  effect  of  which  has  been  per- 
ceptible ever  after  in  their  organization.  Whatever  may  be 
true  in  the  domain  of  natural  science,  it  is  certainly  true  in 
human  life,  and  in  the  history  of  nations.  I  need  go  no 
further  than  to  our  Civil  War  for  an  illustration,  though  it  is 
on  a  comparatively  very  limited  scale.  The  terrible  experi- 
ences of  those  four  years  produced  an  effect  on  the  spirit  of 
the  whole  American  people  which  will  be  felt  in  their  political 
action  for  centuries.  The  same  thing  is  true,  on  a  still  smaller 
scale,  in  the  life  of  every  individual  man.  This  is  too  obvious 
to  need  illustration. 

Now  the  Puritan  age  was  one  of  those  crises  in  the  history 
of  the  English  people,  when,  as  the  historians  tell  us,  a  definite 
change  was  made  in  the  English  character.  But  the  Puritans 
who  came  to  this  country,  in  addition  to  all  the  experiences 
through  which  they  passed  in  England,  endured  such  hard- 
ships here,  made  such  sacrifices,  and  struggled  with  such  new 
conditions  of  life,  that  among  the  people  of  this  branch  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  family  many  very  marked  modifications  were 
brought  about  in  our  characteristics  as  a  people.  There  are 
more  of  these  than  I  have  time  to  speak  of  on  the  present 
occasion.  I  shall  be  obliged  to  pass  by  several  that  I  consider 
of  even  more  importance  than  those  I  mention.  I  will  con- 
fine myself  to  a  very  few. 


It  seems  to  me  that  that  age  was  so  peculiarly  an  age  of  un- 
selfish work  for  the  good  of  others,  and  particularly  for  the 


60 

good  of  the  succeeding  ages,  that  its  effects  are  to  be  seen  in 
every  descendant  of  the  Puritans,  whether  he  maintains  the 
Puritan  faith  or  not.  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  underlying 
race  characteristic  of  loyalty  to  duty.  No  Anglo-Saxon  is 
without  that  feeling.  When  Nelson  hung  out  his  signal  at 
Trafalgar  :  "  England  expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty,"  he 
knew  that  the  heart  of  every  cabin  boy  in  the  fleet  would  re- 
spond and  that  he  would  be  roused  to  do  his  best.  No  Anglo- 
Saxon,  however  far  he  may  have  wandered  from  the  right,  but 
will  at  least  try  to  convince  himself  that  he  is  still  loyal  to 
duty,  in  order  that  he  may  maintain  his  own  self-respect.  I  do 
not  refer  therefore  to  this  characteristic,  or  even  to  that  other 
characteristic  of  working  for  the  mere  sake  of  satisfying  the 
desire  to  be  employed  about  something. 

Some  years  ago  I  accompanied  a  gentleman  who  belonged 
to  one  of  the  Latin  races,  to  the  library  of  the  Yale  Theologi- 
cal School.  On  entering,  my  companion  went  at  once  and 
stood  before  a  painting  that  hangs  on  the  walls  which  repre- 
sents two  children,  descendants,  I  may  be  excused  for  saying, 
of  one  of  the  original  founders  of  this  town.  After  looking 
at  the  picture  for  some  time,  he  said :  "  By  no  possibility  could 
any  one  suppose  that  those  children  were  of  any  Latin  race." 
I  asked  him  his  reason.  After  a  moment's  reflection,  he 
said :  "  the  Latins  are  always  looking  within  themselves  and 
thinking  how  they  appear  to  other  people.  The  Anglo- 
Saxons,  forgetful  of  themselves,  look  out  on  the  world  to  see 
what  they  can  do  in  it."  That  this  is  measurably  true  has  just 
been  recognized  in  an  interesting  way  by  Father  Hecker,  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  of  the  Paulist  Fathers  in  New  York. 
In  a  book,  published  within  the  present  year,  he  undertakes  to 
give  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  fact  that  the  Protestant 
nations  have  exerted  more  influence  in  the  world  than  the 
Roman  Catholic  nations.  I  quote  from  his  book  with  no  idea 
of  controversy,  but  in  the  same  liberal  spirit  in  which  he 


61 

writes.  The  question  is  simply  one  of  fact.  Father  Heeker 
declares  that  the  race  characteristic  of  the  Latins  is  a  dispo- 
sition to  submit  to  authority,  and  he  says  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic church  has  made  the  mistake  of  devoting  its  effort  to 
strengthening  this  race  characteristic  which  was  already  suf- 
ficiently strong,  and  has  tried  to  resist  rather  than  develop 
among  the  Latins  independent  action.  It  has  sought  to  en- 
courage the  passive  virtues,  rather  than  the  active.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  says,  the  race  characteristic  of  the  Teutonic 
nations  is  personal  independence,  and  an  eagerness  for  action, 
and  Protestantism  has  developed  still  further  this  race  char- 
acteristic, already  so  strong,  and  has  directed  it  especially 
against  the  authority  of  the  church.  Here,  he  says,  is  the  ex- 
planation of  the  fact  that  "  fifty  millions  of  Protestants  "  have 
so  long  exerted  and  still  exert  a  more  controlling  influence 
over  the  movements  and  destinies  of  nations  than  "two  hun- 
dred millions  of  Catholics." 

Now  this  predisposition  among  all  Teutonic  races  to  be  on 
the  lookout  for  something  to  do,  and  something  to  work  for, 
has  been  modified  in  this  country  among  the  descendants  of 
the  Puritans  by  the  experiences  through  which  their  ancestors 
passed.  It  has  been  expanded  and  diverted  from  mere  selfish 
ends,  and  directed  towards  the  good  of  others,  and  especially 
the  good  of  succeeding  generations.  The  aim  which  the  Puri- 
tan proposed  to  himself  as  a  practical  object  of  life  has  been 
expressed  by  the  poet  in  the  "  Golden  Legend."  "  Let  all 
men's  good  be  each  man's  rule."  No  descendant  of  the  Puri- 
tans, of  any  religious  denomination,  or  even  though  he  be 
without  Christian  faith,  but  feels  it  to  be  a  natural  instinct,  in 
imitation  of  the  example  of  his  ancestors,  to  labor  in  some  way 
for  the  public  good,  and  especially  for  those  who  are  to  come 
after  him.  It  is  the  very  nature  of  the  descendants  of  the 
Puritans  to  be  public  spirited  and  to  plan  for  the  generations 
that  are  yet  unborn. 


62 

We  owe  also  to  the  Puritans  the  estimate  which  is  placed  in 
this  country  on  manhood.  The  Anglo-Saxons  were  always 
characterized  by  high  ideas  of  personal  independence.  But  a 
new  conception  was  joined  with  those  ideas  for  the  first  time 
by  the  men  who  took  the  Bible  for  the  rule  of  their  conduct, 
and  sought  to  make  their  lives  correspond  to  its  teachings.  It 
was  because  the  Bible  taught  them  that  all  men  are  equally 
the  objects  of  the  special  care  of  God,  and  that  all  men  are 
brothers  in  Christ,  that  the  whole  conception  of  the  respect 
that  is  due  from  man  to  man  was  changed,  and  no  Puritan 
was  so  high  in  rank  that  he  did  not  recognize  a  spiritual  equal- 
ity in  the  humblest  Christian.  Of  a  Puritan  of  that  period  it 
was  said  as  something  new :  "  He  never  disdained  the  meanest, 
nor  flattered  the  greatest."  "  He  had  a  loving  and  sweet 
courtesy  for  the  poorest."  No  descendant  of  the  men  who 
settled  Plymouth,  Boston,  or  New  Haven,  is  worthy  of  his  an- 
cestry, of  whom  this  is  not  true  to-day. 

But  perhaps  more  important  still  was  the  new  self-respect 
that  was  taught  those  who  belonged  to  the  humbler  classes  of 
society.  Kehemiah  Wallington  has  given  a  beautiful  sketch 
of  his  mother,  who  was  the  wife  of  a  London  Puritan  me- 
chanic. He  says :  "  She  was  very  loving  and  obedient  to  her 
parents,  loving  and  kind  to  her  husband,  very  tender-hearted 
to  her  children,  loving  all  that  was  holy,  much  misliking  the 
wicked  and  profane.  She  was  a  pattern  of  sobriety  unto  many, 
very  seldom  seen  abroad  except  at  church.  When  others  recre- 
ated themselves  at  holidays  and  other  times,  she  would  take 
her  needle-work  and  say,  '  here  is  my  recreation.'  God  had 

•/  "  t/ 

given  her  a  pregnant  wit  and  an  excellent  memory.  She  was 
very  ripe  and  perfect  in  all  stories  of  the  Bible,  likewise  in  all 
the  stories  of  the  martyrs,  and  could  readily  turn  to  them. 
She  was  also  perfect  and  well  seen  in  the  English  chronicles 
and  in  the  descendants  of  the  Kings  of  England.  She  lived  in 


63 

holy  wedlock  with  her  husband  twenty  years,  wanting  but  four 
days." 

This  was  the  kind  of  respect  for  manhood  which  grew  up  in 
New  England,  and  if  any  where  in  this  land,  or  in  the  wide 
world,  there  is  a  human  being  who  has  been  cheered  in  his 
lowly  condition  by  knowing  that  there  is  one  country  where  it 
has  ever  been  an  acknowledged  fact  that  "  a  man  is  a  man  for 
all  that,"  let  him  thank  the  Puritans,  who  learned  it  from  the 
Bible,  and  made  it  here  a  reality.  It  is  owing  to  them  that  no 
American  "kowtows"  to  anyone — and  that  there  is  no  true 
American  who  wishes  to  have  any  one  "kowtow"  to  him. 


The  Puritans  also  gave  to  the  world  a  new  idea  of  what  it  is 
to  be  a  gentleman.  With  the  views  respecting  manhood  which 
they  received  from  the  Bible,  they  conceived  a  new  idea  as  to 
what  is  the  proper  way  to  treat  others.  Polished  manners  and 
a  gracious  deportment  to  one's  equals  is  not  enough,  according 
to  the  Puritan  ideal.  A  man  may  smile  and  smile  and  be  a 
villain.  There  should  be  such  delicacy  of  perception  of  the 
rights  and  feelings  of  others  as  to  lead  a  person  not  only  to 
avoid  giving  offense  to  any,  high  or  low,  but  this  perception 
should  be  accompanied  by  such  a  treatment  of  all  as  reveals  a 
friendly  feeling.  This  idea  of  a  gentleman  did  not  exist  before 
the  time  of  the  Puritans.  I  do  not  say  that  there  were  not 
persons  who  had  such  a  character.  But  Shakespeare  uses  the 
word  "  gentleman  "  more  than  five  hundred  times,  and  not  once 
to  designate  anything  more  than  a  person  of  high  social 
position. 

A  man  who  is  habitually  thoughtless  of  the  feelings  of  his 
inferiors  is  not  a  gentleman  according  to  the  Puritan  idea. 
One  of  the  most  eloquent  of  English  essayists  of  modern  times, 
Rev.  Charles  Kingsley,  a  dignitary  of  the  Anglican  church, 
says  that  "  The  Puritan  and  not  the  cavalier  conception  of 


64 

what  a  British  gentleman  should  be  is  the  one  accepted  by  the 
whole  British  nation  at  this  day."  And  yet  it  is  unquestion- 
able that  in  this  country,  among  gentlemen,  there  is  a  distinct 
quality  perceptible,  which  has  come  to  us  from  our  Puritan 
ancestors,  which  is  higher  and  nobler  than  anything  that  is 
common  in  England.  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  are  thousands 
of  persons  in  England  who  are  gentlemen  in  the  Puritan  sense 
of  the  term.  It  is  also  very  probable  that  in  that  country  there 
is  a  much  larger  number  of  men  than  in  this  country  who  possess 
polish  of  manner  and  high  culture  of  every  kind.  But  it  is 
not  intended  as  any  disrespect  to  English  gentlemen  when  I 
say  that  there  is  an  element  of  what  in  this  country  we  should 
call  rudeness  in  the  way  in  which  English  gentlemen  habitu- 
ally disregard  all  the  prepossessions  and  tastes  of  even  their 
equals  with  whom  they  come  in  contact,  and  exhibit  a  calm 
assumption  of  superiority,  which  to  an  American  is  simply 
ludicrous.  Mr.  Richard  Grant  White,  who  carried  his  admira- 
tion of  everything  English  to  such  an  extent  that  his  name 
alone  in  this  connection  almost  provokes  a  smile,  felt  obliged 
to  devote  a  chapter  in  his  book  on  England  to  this  marked 
English  trait.  While  Englishmen  are  respected  the  world 
over,  every  one  knows  that  they  are  also,  as  a  nation,  intensely 
disliked  the  world  over,  for  their  want  of  tact,  and  their  disre- 
gard of  the  feelings  of  others.  What  I  refer  to  may  be  illus- 
trated by  an  anecdote  which  was  told  some  years  ago  of  one  of 
the  most  prominent  of  British  statesmen  then  living.  He 
bore  an  ancestral  name  which  itself  was  a  guarantee  that  he 
had  always  enjoyed  every  social  advantage.  Being  in  the 
country,  at  the  house  of  a  friend,  he  was  invited  to  address  a 
political  meeting  in  a  neighboring  town.  He  drove  over  to 
the  public  hall,  where  he  found  at  the  door  a  crowd  of  vil- 
lagers ready  to  give  him  welcome.  As  he  descended  from  the 
carriage  a  shout  went  up,  in  which  the  voice  of  a  certain 
brawny  ploughman  was  very  conspicuous,  who  was  swinging 


65 

his  hat  with  all  enthusiasm.  The  "  noble  lord  "  fixed  his  eye 
sternly  upon  this  man,  and  addressed  him  with  the  not  very 
gracious  and  very  peremptory  order :  "  You  fellow,  stop  your 
bawling !" 

A  former  citizen  of  New  Haven,  still  highly  honored  here, 
who  lived  for  many  years  in  Germany,  visited  the  city  of 
Thorn  for  the  purpose  of  being  present  on  an  important  anni- 
versary occasion.  He  said  that  he  found  in  the  morning,  in 
the  crowded  breakfast-room  of  the  hotel,  such  an  assemblage 
of  German  statesmen  and  German  scholars  as  was  rarely  to  be 
met.  It  chanced  that  an  English  ambassador  on  his  way  to 
Constantinople  from  London  to  attend  a  conference  of  the 
Great  Powers  had  arrived  the  evening  before,  and  coming 
down  to  breakfast  found  some  difficulty  in  getting  a  seat  for 
himself  and  his  party.  Standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
with  a  loud  voice,  he  gave  utterance  to  some  very  uncalled  for 
and  contemptuous  remarks  about  the  want  of  politeness  and 
the  coarse  manners  of  the  German  people.  Dr.  Joseph  P. 
Thompson,  who  heard  him,  said  that  though  the  English  am- 
bassador spoke  in  English  and  to  his  own  friends,  he  was  heard 
and  perfectly  understood  by  every  one  in  the  room,  and  what 
he  said  could  hardly  have  been  a  more  public  affront  to  the 
best  men  in  Germany  if  it  had  been  said  in  the  Reichstag 
itself. 

Now  in  the  United  States,  with  all  our  faults,  there  has 
come  to  us  directly  from  the  Puritans,  a  gentleness  and  a  genu- 
ine kindliness  of  manner,  and  a  respect  for  even  the  prejudices 
of  others,  which  is  constantly  remarked  by  Englishmen  them- 
selves who  have  been  in  this  country. 

Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  in  his  recent  volume  of  poems,  in 
the  tribute  which  he  pays  to  his  friend  Professor  Agassiz,  well 
describes  the  Puritan  idea  of  a  gentleman.  It  may  be  con- 
sidered to  be  the  recognition  by  an  American  descendant  of 


66 

the  Puritans  of  the  same  qualities  which  marked  a  descendant 
of  the  Swiss  Puritans. 

He  was  so  human  !    Neither  strong  or  weak, 
Far  from  his  kind  he  neither  sank  nor  soared, 
But  sate  an  equal  guest  at  every  board. 
No  beggar  ever  felt  him  condescend, 
No  prince  presume  ;  for  still  himself  he  bare 
At  manhood's  simple  level,  and  where'er 
He  met  a  stranger,  there  he  left  a  friend. 


One  other  characteristic  has  been  stamped  by  the  Puritans 
on  the  whole  American  people — a  peculiar  respect  for  woman. 
I  quote  from  one  of  the  latest  of  the  English  historians,  who 
says  that  even  in  England  a  new  conception  of  womanhood 
was  developed  by  them.  He  says  expressly,  in  so  many 
words,  that  "  Home  as  we  conceive  it  now,  was  the  creation  of 
the  Puritans."  "  Wife  and  child  rose  from  mere  dependents 
on  the  will  of  husband  or  father,  as  husband  or  father  saw  in 
them  saints  like  himself,  souls  hallowed  by  the  touch  of  a 
divine  spirit,  and  called  with  a  divine  calling  like  his  own. 
The  sense  of  spiritual  fellowship  gave  a  new  tenderness  and 
refinement  to  the  common  family  affections."  This  feeling 
also  was  intensified  in  this  country,  and  the  respect  with  which 
woman  has  in  consequence  ever  been  treated  here  is  known 
the  world  over.  A  deference  is  manifested  to  her  which 
is  accorded  to  her  nowhere  else.  The  American  woman  of 
all  others  may  well  join  in  grateful  acknowledgments  to  her 
Puritan  ancestry. 


